Batter Up
by EscapingMe
Summary: Millie, a female softball player from the backwoods of West Virginia was taken by Young Blood, now she fights for both of their lives on an alien planet in the midst of a Xeno/Clan war that both are woefully unprepared for. Much reminiscing in flashback. Rated T for mild cursing and violence/gore.
1. Chapter 1

**This is my first story for (I know it's bad form to admit that but I'm proud I've overcome my nerves enough to post here) but it was originally planned to be just a one-shot that spanned a chapter, maybe two. Now though I'm not so sure so I'm just going to follow it where it wants to go. I do have a particular ending in mind that's tragic so please be aware. I chose to rate this chapter as T for mild language and mild gore, I hope that was right. If not please let me know and I'll rate it appropriately. I also hope that a registered beta for this genre/category will like it and might want to team up with me. I have a really hard time translating what's in my head into words, per my profile. All constructive criticism is welcome. I do NOT own or make ANY money from Aliens/Predators - the character Millie though is all mine.**

The scene before Millie's eyes was a war zone as she tripped down the drop ramp of the ship, boots finally crushing into the porous lava like rocks of the planet's surface.

The only human, female or otherwise, to ever step foot on this alien terrain she stood rooted in place with heaving breaths and a boulder of dread in the pit of her stomach.

Death and agony were everywhere she looked, panning from left to right. The dense blackness of night on this planet provided very little light besides the murky halo of twin moons.

How was she ever supposed to find Vsil'jk? Panic gripped her with icy talons as her eyes struggled to find his brick walled presence amongst the chaos. Colors were muted and shaded in gray as the clan of Yauts fought against the Xenomorphs. It was impossible to pick out her mates tan and red stripes, his impossibly broad shoulders or impressive height. The fighting probably stretched on for miles. He could be anywhere.

Millie might never find him alive, let alone dead and her heart lurched painfully inside her chest. It was too much to bear. Breaking into a run she kept scanning, colliding with bodies of falling comrades, friends and hard meats alike but she couldn't slow her momentum.

Legs pumping, she twisted her ankles and fell numerous times. Blood poured from her wounds but she didn't feel a thing in her mindless terror. Every downed body was inspected, rolled over. She cracked one of her flares to life in her haphazard slide down into a crater. The light was nonexistent here, the bodies stacking at random on top of each other.

The stirred up dust and debris was so thick that Millie could barely see, her eyes painfully scratchy and watering. She needed to see. The powdery clouds choked at her throat and sludged like cement inside her lungs but she pushed on. She would find him. She had to find him.

In the distance, blasts of Roman candle like lights criss-crossed in the air just over head as those Yauts still standing fired off their plasma cannons. Vivid bursts of blues, whites and yellows.

There were simply too many Xenomorphs. Hundreds, maybe thousands could be seen cresting the rocky dunes in the distance like an angry swarm of locusts before disappearing; bobbing like flotsam in the ocean they rose and fell from view.

Millie was exhausted and overwhelmed as she staggered amongst the entrenched bodies of her mate's clan. Her clan. Glowing green blood was mixed with the ashen soil, casting her already haunting figure in a shroud of filth as she stood, barely, and simply stared. Her reddish brown eyes stark headlights, wide with horror as the tears cleaned thin tracks down her cheeks.

For more than a mile in front of her stretched an endless sea of tangled death and dismemberment. Her flare was fizzling down as it dangled at her side. It was a miracle that she wasn't dead with them already, with her Vsil'jk. There were simply too many bodies to search, the area too vast.

"Vsil'jk," she whispered to no one but herself. "Where are you?"

For an insane moment, Millie closed her eyes and prayed. Prayed for death, prayed for a miracle, prayed to Paya. The great white warrior goddess that was at the center of Yautja belief, fertility and life. In this place, Cetanu reigned as the god of death but Paya couldn't be very far from his shoulder.

What a simple human female could possibly offer an alien goddess, Millie didn't know but she was willing to bargain anything. Her life. Her servitude for an eternity. Her soul.

"Vsil'jk," was her only plea as she felt a hard wind shove suddenly at her back, propelling her forward and her leaden feet to move faster and faster.

She was blind now, her tears falling so fast that she cried out each time she tripped over a body. Her right hand even went straight through the sliced abdomen of a Yaut as she tried to break a fall, her palm cut as it impacted with his vertebrae.

Shaken to her very core, she sucked in air like a beached fish as she slowly pulled free of the sucking muck and held her hand up to the wan light of another plasma blast. Glowing green dripped down her forearm, gore stuck between her outstretched fingers.

This could be Vsil'jk. One of his brothers. One of his friends. Millie was going to be sick. Stomach heaving in a laborious contraction, she emptied herself as carefully as she could. They were dead, their masks emotionless shells, hiding the face of their final moments but she refused to dishonor them with her bile.

After the wrenching spasms eased, she wiped her mouth with the back of her free hand as her eyes landed on the wrist blades of the Yaut she'd literally fallen into. They were fully extended and at least three feet long. The arm skin was black however, not her mates as she'd fleetingly feared.

"Vsil'jk," she moaned. She had no choice. If she was to go on into the thick of the fray ahead she needed a weapon. Before leaving the ship, she'd changed out of her hide loincloth and short tunic to pull on the jeans and tank top that her mate had originally found her in so long ago. It felt so long ago..

The pockets were shallow, unable to hold any of the Yaut weapons except her own. Brass knuckles, pepper spray and a small pocket knife. On Earth, a girl needed to be prepared for anything. A mugger, a rapist. Nothing had prepared her for this.

Gathering her courage and pushing past crushing helplessness, she unmanned the body of its wrist blades before strapping it to her own arm. It wasn't a perfect fit, the harness only adjusting so much, but it would do if she could wield its weight.

For her mate she'd wield a mountain.

Millie pushed to her feet and carried on, still stumbling but her eyes were torn between scanning the bodies and all around for the Xeno. A couple times she'd uncovered a male with her mate's colors, and each time her heart threatened to simply stop. It wasn't him. How many times a woman could die was mind boggling.

Die..

Vsil'jk..

Suddenly a few feet in front of her a Xeno pounced from the inky darkness of a rock face, fully intending on ambushing a Yaut from behind. She knew that behind. The uneven shorn dreads, the large scarred burn mark on his lower back.

"Jm'aal!" She screamed, emptying her lungs to try and warn the medic but it was useless. The noise of raging battle was simply too great, echoing off the craggy spines and cliff faces. He was going to die as the Xeno hissed its victory in advance, readying its whipping tail to impale the warrior.

Vsil'jk..

Millie kept screaming even though her body shook violently from need of oxygen, only this time instead of in warning it was in a blind rage. Charging forward at full speed, she raised her bladed arm and met the surprised Xeno head on. It twisted away from Jm'aal to face her and reared up on its hind legs, inner mouth snapping as it shrieked to echo her battle cry.

She'd never fought a Xeno before, never even seen one up close despite listening in thrall to her mate detail his kills. The way his forest green eyes would light from within. The way his broad and brutal chest would swell with pride as he knocked it with his fist.

Before meeting her, he'd had his mind set on mating with a Blooded female, a warrior in her own right to birth him remarkable sucklings. During her first days on the ship he spoke of little else, even going to so far as to openly court the scarce few who took notice of him despite being a Young Blood.

Millie was always inwardly thrilled that they rejected him, though she hated to know the pain he hid away beneath that primal exterior. Warrior females wanted to hunt, not to nest and breed but her mate couldn't be swayed and Millie knew that had an arrangement actually been made, the female Yaut would've quickly found a convenient way to be rid of her human hanger-on.

In the end, Millie stayed the course. He was hers.

And he would have the Blooded Warrior he always wanted.

Vsil'jk..

The blades arced through the air, cutting it with a whistle as she suddenly spun at the last minute to broadside the serpent. Her aim was good, acidic blood exploded from its gashed ribs and it howled its pain while striking back with a vicious sweep of its tail.

The blow was so hard to Millie's stomach that she sailed through the air and crashed on her back. The prone bodies did little to cushion her fall as all were plated in armor, and she struggled to move, to breathe. Her ribs were on fire and her eyes wouldn't focus but she scrambled to kneel just as the Xeno leapt towards her.

Unable to do little else but brace for impact, she punched her blades straight up and out. Either she'd be crushed, the bones in her arm shattered or melted away from the acidic blood, she fought to stay brave. The Xeno's mouth was open, its adhesive like saliva trailing away in the wind as limbs tucked like a velociraptor were ready to dig in with claws and strength.

Paya must have been listening to her prayers or Cetanu was distracted because the ugly monster never saw the thrust of her blades coming until they broke through the boney exoskeleton of its chest and lodged with shredding vibrations into its black heart.

Unfortunately Millie could do little else to prepare as the aliens massive weight crashed down on top of her. Trying as best she could to flow with the impact like one would catching a football, she dropped her bladed arm down and back as she sprawled beneath its twitching and heaving body with a painful exhale. She wriggled for all she was worth, terrified of having her sternum crushed by the center breastbone ridge of its skeleton which left her in the end hopelessly wedged in between two bodies.

She didn't know what to do! She couldn't think, she could barely breathe as its thrashing death throes continued to mash her down and throttle her bladed arm all the way to the shoulder joint, threatening to pop it out or rip it off entirely. Millie clenched her fists before going limp, trying to stave off more damage. Vaguely she remembered Vsil'jk saying the worst pain and bruising happened when a body tensed from impact rather than relaxing.

Vsil'jk...

Millie couldn't contain her fear, barking a wail of frustration as she screwed her eyes shut and punched upwards to keep a steady pressure on the Xeno above her. So far none of its acidic blood had run down her arm to ruin her and she didn't want to take the chance. It didn't stop thrashing and screeing above her, the blades stayed buried deep and for now had kept the twin wounds sealed. Millie knew her luck would only hold for so long but she was human. She'd never have the strength to leverage its body off of her, not when she was as effectively pinned down as a bug to a board.

She didn't have time for this!

"Die! Die you sonovabitch, die already! Die!" Barely recognizing her own voice let alone that she was speaking, Millie jack hammered her bladed arm with what little room she had to rapidly stab into the Xeno's chest as quick and hard as she could, tearing up its insides and forcing an ear piercing wail from its elongated head.

The acid flowed freely now, showing as a sickening murky green color in the fading cannon blasts beyond. Almost instantly her bladed gauntlet started to smoke and hiss, droplets flinging on to the fallen bodies bracketing her on either side. The smell was horrific, even worse in close quarters without the aid of the planets gusting winds or the raucous downdrafts from clan ships over head.

She couldn't die like this! She was a Blooded Warrior now!

The chemical reaction from the Xeno's burning blood was emitting a lot of heat, enough to redden and blister her skin without ever having to touch her directly. Time was of the essence.

Forcing her trembling muscles to move, she grunted and pushed up as hard as she possibly could with the blades still imbedded and her free hand on its throat. It felt like an impossible weight, a dead weight now that the creature had finally fallen silent and still, its large drooped head blanketing her in darkness and stench.

Millie's entire body burned and throbbed from exertion yet all she'd succeeded in doing was lifting the body a few scant inches. This was stupid! Vsil'jk would never find her if she stayed buried under the alien and she'd never find him if she couldn't escape!

Torn between crying for help and simply crying, if she'd ever really stopped since running off the ship impulsively, Millie sagged back against the unforgiving ground and let her body go slack. The bodies on either side of her were thankfully keeping most of the Xeno's weight off, and the blades were buried in the left side of its chest instead of directly above her. She was never the best student in high school or college but surely there had to be some kind of benefit from their current positioning if only she could think!

Unfortunately the images and memories that assaulted her had nothing to do with her current predicament nor did they hold any secret meaning she could glean that would help. Unbidden, she remembered the day her father died in the hospital; how his tall frame was so long for the adjustable bed that the soles of his bare feet were plastered uncomfortably against the foot board when he wasn't writhing mindlessly in pain, kicking out at it with hard slams and knocks that had broken a couple toes.

John Peter Miles III was always such a big man, a police officer turned coal miner when the department had budget issues that required lay offs and cut backs. In the sleepy little town of McCoy, West Virginia coal mining was their economies backbone and everyone was required to participate, no matter how staunchly some residents like her father tried to rebel and defect into other avenues of work. In the end it had claimed him too when the fear of no income and the need to keep food on the table became too great. Millie's father was eventually diagnosed with Black Lung for his trouble and subsequently passed away in a lot of pain despite his continual IV doses of morphine, oblivious to his surroundings and those loved ones circling his bed dying along with him.

Millie distinctly remembered standing by his bedside when she was on the cusp of turning eighteen, graduating high school and secure in the knowledge that she'd be starting college next fall with a full softball scholarship and it was all thanks to the deteriorating deity like figure in the bed before her. His breathing ragged and wheezy, his arms curled up against his chest with hands swiveling at the wrists because he couldn't lie still. It just wasn't fair that a six foot four, two hundred-twenty pound man should be lying there as a shadow of his former self, down to a hundred-thirty pounds of clammy and pale pasty white skin and smelling strongly of death at just thirty-six years old. He didn't even have hair anymore from the last round of failed chemo except a thinning gray ring that ran from above one dumbo like ear to the other around the back.

It was so haunting to Millie, the injustice and helplessness of it all that instead of her suffering father she was the one who had to grab the plastic banana puke bowl off the table not once but twice. She'd never felt so weak and small in her entire life.

Was that why she was thinking of her father now, trapped prone and helpless beneath the weight of the dead Xeno? She was sure she sported the same sunken in cheeks and shadowed eyes that he had in his final moments. That she could finally, for once in her life, understand the full indignity of having a body that just wasn't strong enough to do what you wanted it to do when you needed it the most. Her father had a family to protect and support and Millie, Millie had a mate who needed her. Of course Vsil'jk would never admit that in a million years, he'd rather die than ask for help and despite the circumstances Millie felt herself smiling through her exhaustion and tears for the first time since her mate had proudly and excitedly descending the drop ramp to join the epic battle still swirling and blasting around her.

She'd watched him go with sweaty palms, anxiety in her stomach bordering on nausea and a deafening roar of blood in her ears yet she'd heard him clear as day as he stood tall and majestic before her. He'd gripped her shoulder gently and shook, then gave a casual 'silly ooman' toss of his dreadlocks and proclaimed in a throaty rattle: "M-di H'dlak", no fear.

Vsil'jk...

Millie could never get him to understand that for humans, to love is to fear. She'd feared her mothers drunken rages, feared her fathers illness, feared every year that she'd blow her shoulder during a game that was reigned by her calm and cool composure from the pitchers mound and punctuated by her times up at bat.

Feared that her mate still didn't understand and never would what love truly was. She still wasn't sure that his kind could even love, let alone know what it was to be loved when they encountered it. It had become Millie's personal mission in life to shower him with it through actions and words but still she feared.

_Yet he doesn't fear the kainde amedha_, her tired mind whispered. _He passed his Chiva with flying colors and he left you safely on the ship with strict orders to stay aboard and stay safe but you're never safe without him. _Millie whimpered in her throat and clenched her gritty eyes closed, willing the lecture to stop but it continued, undaunted by her efforts. _Your father taught you to hit the stars every time you swung the bat and to show every batter who's boss when you're at the mound. You're not pitching now, you're batting. Swing for the stars, pige _- short for 'pigeon' - _swing for the stars. _She could hear her father's voice, a soothing tenor that used to sing Christmas songs no matter what month it was yet now in the recesses of her mind it was hard and firm, determined.

In that instant, she knew what she had to do.


	2. Chapter 2

**Second chapter - this one is a little more involved as I wanted to play with Millie's mind a bit, and it helps to set the stage for future chapters in her downward spiral. I also wanted to thank the two people who have reviewed so far, I appreciate it and I'm glad you like it! Again, I don't own Aliens/Predator - just Millie.**

First she had to breathe! As if on cue her eyes snapped open along with her dry, cracked mouth and she sucked in almost more air than her burning lungs could handle. God did it ever burn, making her eyes water even more but that wasn't the only thing. Millie still couldn't hear any sounds above the cacophony of battle but she could feel the odd little stuttery flutter deep within her chest that was probably a rattling wheeze of congestion. She didn't know if it was from breathing in all the dust in the air, the uneven ratio of gases on this planet that just barely made breathing tolerable or if maybe she'd bruised internally and cracked some ribs.

Once in her second year of college, she'd been blindsided by a hit ball right to her stomach as she was playing short stop and even that didn't hurt anywhere near as bad! Just moments ago she knew what she had to do but the crushing throb of pain she struggled to breathe through, more shallow this time, had scattered those thoughts to the wind.

The longer she stayed buried under the alien, the more time her body had in general to suddenly remind her of what she'd recently put it through and it was a set back that she just couldn't afford right now. Yet even as her breathing stabilized and the pain ebbed down to a dull throb her stomach leapt up her throat as the stench in the air finally registered at full strength through her confusion. She couldn't be sick, not again!

Millie was beyond desperate as she kept swallowing the mouthfuls of saliva in hopes to stave off another heave. She frantically darted her eyes around, trying to take stock of how much maneuvering room she had but beyond being able to crane her neck a scant few inches to the left it wouldn't be near enough to vomit properly. If she aspirated it would be the end of her, the last straw for her already laboring lungs!

_You're hyperventilating Millie, you have to calm down. That's why you can't breathe very well right now and why you're starting to panic all over again. You have to calm down. _Jm'aal, whose Xeno attacker she'd taken on all by herself, had uttered those same words into her translator not even a month ago when she'd been crowded and cornered in the chow line by a group of merely curious UnBloods. They hadn't hurt her, not physically, but merely being surrounded by at least a thousand pounds of combined individuals had been enough to set her off. Millie's attention had been caught by a section of the food queue lined with woven baskets. They were all brimming with oddly shaped and colored vegetables and fruits, the smells ranging from sweet to sour to bitter.

The only one she could successfully recognize by name was the Naxa fruit, a particular favorite of hers that Vsil'jk religiously kept in stock for her in their room once he'd introduced it to her, the first ever alien vegetation she'd been brave enough consume whole in one sitting. Brave and ravenous enough, actually. She'd always had a very simple policy regarding food and eating, courtesy of her grandmother. _"Some people eat to live but I live to eat!" _Since starting training for softball full time, more as a serious sport than just for fun when she'd hit high school, she hadn't ever had to worry about eating too much, not when she spent hours upon hours after school, on weekends, on breaks and during summer vacation running the drills and the bases. Millie wasn't slender, exactly, but more 'grain-fed' as the slang went.

Her hips were full, her thighs thick with muscle all the way down to her ankles with a slight narrowing at her waist, a fuller chest and bicep's bigger than most of the boys. She was... hardy. Grain-fed, built for hard labor as her father used to joke whenever he'd catch her lamenting in front of the mirror behind her bedroom door in a new dress for another theme-less, always the same dance at school. Prom included.

No, she loved to eat but the problem was she wasn't on Earth anymore. Millie had suffered her share of food poisoning through the years, all accidents, but it had been a miserable enough experience each time that when faced with alien food she hesitated judiciously. Of course the known course of action was to simply sample any given item in a minute amount and then wait before trying just a bit more. Vsil'jk was amused at first whenever he'd bring her meals to their room, understandably unused to someone -Yaut or Ooman- treating simple things as if it was a dangerous creature just waiting to strike.

He always ate with gusto, in every meaning of the word, and it annoyed Millie to no end. He never had to worry about nausea or diarrhea that lasted for hours with cramps so bad that dying seemed the only option. She remembered watching him enjoy each meal as he watched her in return, occasionally directing a curious trill her way with or without the cocking of his head to one side or the other. Millie simply glared and fervently wished that she'd been able to bring a big box of prunes to offer as a gift to her gloriously ignorant mate. The result wouldn't be food poisoning but close enough for revenge.

Over the course of the next few weeks, the trilling and head tilting was replaced with displeased growls, raised hackles of dreads instead of fur and barking commands that roughly translated as: _"Eat, Ooman!" _Millie desperately wanted to, she wasn't stupid. She knew she couldn't continue on much longer by picking at her meals like a bird but she'd wanted to be one hundred percent certain that her body could handle the new fare without turning itself inside-out all the time. That's when Vsil'jk seemed to finally understand or perhaps take pity on her, and offered the Naxa fruit.

The smell of the rind oils alone as he'd scored and peeled it with a thumb claw was enough to make her mouth water and her stomach clench in rippling spasms. As usual he was intensely keen on her reaction and seemed to take longer than necessary. By then Millie was completely beyond caring if this strange fruit would kill her and without a thought to proper manners, as in waiting for him to actually offer it to her, it was snatched from his huge hands and fisted in both of hers to be rudely consumed with deep moans, pulp popping from the bite of her teeth. It didn't take long before she was completely coated in back spray from the sticky sweet fruit but Millie couldn't care less. Vsil'jk apparently enjoyed her feral side, if his purrs were anything to go by, or maybe he was just relieved that his _'silly ooman' _was finally eating. Naxa tasted like a combination of mango, pineapple and lemon. It tasted like home, and hours later when she still felt perfectly fine the decision had been made by her smugly knowing mate to always keep that fruit on hand when eating anything else was simply beyond Millie's coping skills.

Whenever he'd bring meal trays to her, everything was already prepared. The meats were in pristine cut slabs and cleaned of all fat. The fruits and vegetables peeled or simply chopped up in raw form or stewed. Even the nuts and breads had been tampered with in some way so it didn't come as a shock to Millie that when she was finally allowed to accompany Vsil'jk to the mess hall, her way of thinking of it, seeing food in their original form took on a whole new meaning of curious wonder and speculation.

It brought her to a virtual stand still in front of the baskets and her mind went blank. She only recognized food in its prepared form, so now what was she supposed to do?

_'DO!' _her mind screamed at her. Yes, she had to '_do_' something, right now! God she couldn't think, her thoughts were all over the place like that one TV show she used to watch about a man who would flit from place to place in time. Never knowing where he'd land until he got there and came to in the thick of things.

Her heart accelerated all over again as if sprinting through a dark tunnel towards the light before random ruminations turned into full blown memories. She was still pinned under the damn alien and she'd gotten lost in her head, again!

To try and calm the almost primal urge to vomit, Millie started breathing slow and even through her mouth instead of her nose. It helped a little but she still choked and swallowed on saliva to keep the bile at bay. Can't asphyxiate, must do something.

Vsil'jk...

Swing for the stars...

She moved carefully at first, but her right arm throbbed and tingled as she flexed her muscles in every way she was able. That's how they worked, right? The wrist blades would extend or react based on muscle reflex. So why weren't they retracting now? Millie knew her frustration was mounting anew and she itched all over from sweat. She could feel the gauntlet twisting and shifting on her forearm from the poor fit and added slickness. Constantly wriggling, concentrating and breathing had turned her little tomb under the alien into a sauna. She just wanted to get out!

Extending her left arm across her stomach, she palmed the cuff of the gauntlet and squeezed up and down its length to test where the most slack was. It seemed to be nearer to her wrist. Clamping down on it, on the underside, her entire body jerked as pain shot up her nerves and right out her mouth in a muted scream. Broken? Burned? She jerked again only this time from the metallic grating noise of the twin blades finally retracting, jarring to a stop inside their housing hard enough to whack her elbow down into the rocks she laid on.

Finally! Millie was tempted, so tempted, to simply go slack again and take another breather. She wasn't fully recuperated from her food issues and the simplest tasks were starting to seem like impossibilities when coupled with her recent injuries but she refused to give in again. The next time she did, if still trapped under her kill, she might not make it. The instability of her mind terrified her but it also seemed to aid her, at least so far.

Rubbing her left hand over her face to clear the sweat, she stared up into total darkness but knew it was only because the alien was blocking the light. Was she looking at its throat? She tentatively explored with shaking fingers, bumping along what felt like the front of its ribs, up and up until.. yes, that felt like a throat. Simply grabbing hold and pushing for all her might hadn't worked at first but her father's favorite motto of _'swing for the stars'_ had her feeling for body position now more than anything.

If you weren't positioned well over the plate, if your weight wasn't centered or shifted in just the right way the ball would never go where you wanted it to once it came off the bat.

The bulk of its weight pressed more along her right side than her left but not enough to fully crush her, which meant the dead Yaut body on her right side must be supporting the majority. The alien was cocked off to the right. Millie bit her lower lip, tasting her own blood mixed with ash, and closed her eyes to remember specifics this time, keeping a tight fist on her minds leash to recall that her first strike had hit along its left side. The side that was cocked off to the right.

If she could somehow get enough room to switch the wrist blades to her left arm and position them to punch through the aliens right shoulder which was just above her.. if she pushed with all her might at the same time.. she _might_ just be able to tip its carcass all the way over and sit up enough to worm her lower body out from under.

Thankfully it wasn't cocked off in the opposite direction; otherwise she'd have to slither out against its gashed ribs. It had stopped bleeding but Millie was sure the blood was still there, coagulated on the wounds, just waiting to dissolve anything it touched. Millie shivered again and took in another deep breath. It was a risk to punch the blades into its shoulder too seeing as how there'd be absolutely no escape from the splatter but she was counting on its circulatory system being just as dead as the rest of it and dead things didn't bleed.

_You can do this Millie, you can do this._ Her mind chanted in encouragement as she felt along the straps of the gauntlet with her left hand, painstakingly undoing them one at a time. Once she got to her upper forearm though, her left arm had to ride higher and onto her lower ribs as it stretched across her body which made her fingers work faster. The pain in her ribs had somehow faded into the background but now they were starting to get agitated all over again, making maintaining slow, even breaths a challenge.

Just as she was reaching her breaking point, or her ribs were if they weren't already, the gauntlet sagged completely off her right arm and she moaned in near relief. Catching hold of one of its straps, she grunted in time with her feeble tugs until the very tips of the blades popped free of the carcass with a sickening wet pop of suction.

Millie's body prematurely flooded with endorphins despite such a small victory but it didn't matter. One step at a time and this next one would probably hurt. _You can do this. You can do this._ Very slowly she breathed out, emptying her lungs and forcefully ignoring the wheezing rattle; she sucked in her stomach as far and tight as she could. The sudden flare of pain was so blinding she almost passed out but didn't stop as she violently trembled and worked the gauntlet between her body and the alien above, over to her left side.

Her toes kept clenching in her sweaty boots as she fought the instinct to breathe, to stop, to take a rest. _Paya, please. Please! Just a little further, hang on.. _With only a couple inches to go, one of the straps caught on something and she blindly panicked, tugging harder with her left hand. Time seemed to crawl. _No, no, need to breathe! _Millie could feel her muscles wanting to thrash, to strike out. She wasn't claustrophobic but she was wedged and pinned down in the dark and couldn't breathe, couldn't get free! Her throat worked in painful spasms and her chest started to heave with the need for air, she even felt her eyes start to roll back in her head. _No, no! Please, so close, BREATHE!_

Unable to control herself any longer, she wrenched the gauntlet the rest of the way to her left with a burst of strength that smashed her elbow against the armor plated body on that side, the other dead Yaut. Pain exploded, up and down her arm as she sucked in such a gigantic gulp of air that she was soon fighting another battle, body quaking coughs of stench and ashen dust.

Keeping a white knuckled death grip on the gauntlet, now safely where she needed it, she was so beyond her breaking point that as if from a distance she heard herself rapidly losing control. Lung ravaging screams tore out of her raw throat in between thrashing coughs that had her legs blinding kicking and banging around in the cramped space. The heels of her boots scoring the rocky ground only stirred up more dust and her shins and knees collided with more armor and exoskeleton. All the fear, all the pain, all the stress, it was uncontrollable and at that moment she didn't care if she died right where she was.


	3. Chapter 3

**FLASHBACK. The current action picks up again at the bottom/end of this chapter. I also had some hiccups uploading this file for some reason so I'm hoping it comes out alright, if not I'll edit. I'd also like to give another HUGE thank you to everyone that's reviewed so far, it feels amazing to have a growing readership and I hope to keep you entertained. Again I don't own/make any money from Aliens/Predator.**

In spite of gorging herself stupid on Naxa like always, Vsil'jk had the forethought to drag Millie into Jm'aal's medical clinic. She'd dropped weight and muscle mass, her energy was low and she was eternally tired. A full diet of only one fruit and barely kept down slim pickings of all other forms of nutrition would spell disaster in the long run. Millie knew this, she understood, but she was just so embarrassed to be seen as weak. At the time of the dragging she hadn't even the strength to protest that she wasn't a child that she would be fine because she knew she wouldn't be. Yautja were many things but stupid wasn't often one of them and as much as she feared this capitulation to the clinic would be seen as weakness in Vsil'jk's eyes she was defeated before she had the breath to start.

Vsil'jk though was undaunted and infinitely gentle in his handling of Millie, as gentle as a Yaut could be. His large clawed hand had stayed bound like a shackle around her upper arm as they wove through corridors and down elevators no matter how frequently she stumbled and panted, out of breath. God, how she loved this creature. If she were him, she would've been shucked out an air lock long before now.

The double doors of the clinic had slid silently open, no more than a hiss of compressed air like the removal of a face mask to alert the staff inside that they had new patients to tend to. Well, one new patient who was red in the face, slightly dizzy and definitely human.

_Millie had a hard time putting two and two together, like her brain was in a blender. The clinic, for lack of a better word, was as dark and oppressive as the rest of the massive clanship that she now called home. The walls and floor appeared gun-metal grey which was the first jolt of awareness for Millie as she sagged in Vsil'jk's hold and tried valiantly to catch her breath. Everywhere else she'd been on the ship the floors were always obscured by the mysterious knee high white fog of humidity so she couldn't say for certain what it actually looked like to walk on besides feeling hard and echoing faintly like a metal. _

_Here in the clinic though there was no fog and the air felt slightly drier, less sticky from prevalent moisture. Millie was immediately confused, in thanks to her weakness, and tried to ponder the mystery while oblivious to the conversation going on above her head between her mate and another Yaut. She vaguely registered their strange language of clicks, clacks, growls and other assorted noises but the visible floor still held her undivided, if warped, attention. Three pairs of feet blurred before her eyes. One pair her own, barefoot and small but the other two were much larger with each toe tipped in a deadly looking talon with thin silvery metal sandal's beneath but no fog._

_Why wasn't there fog? Where was she again? Her brow furrowed into creases as she struggled to think past her exhaustion and whirring thoughts. Right, the clinic, she was in a medical clinic. That would explain the usual smell of antiseptic but not why there was no fog up to her knees. A large clawed hand had cupped under her chin to raise her head before turning it decisively from left to right. That immediately tilted Millie's world on its axis again. Before she knew it, she was stumbling against her mate's barrel chested side and slumping there, squinting up into a strange face._

_Faces, plural. One face multiplied by three, overlapping like an odd kaleidoscope of clockwise circling green. No, shades of green. From the deepest forest to the lightest grass and all of them were missing a lower right mandible with backlit yellow eyes that seemed to be assessing her, or amused. Yaut's were always amused by Ooman's, Millie's pride hated to think that it was just 'her' they found funny._

_The clicking, clacking and growling continued for another few minutes as the green males eyes flicked from her face to that of her mate beside her. Lord but she wished she knew what they were talking about, certain it involved her. After a short pause and another world altering turn this way and that of her head, the green male let go before all three of him swayed off into the distance to pull open a drawer - no not pull, more like press and open - and retrieve a little device that to Millie's malnourished brain reminded her of a hearing aid for the deaf. The beige plastic kind that looped around an ear to keep the canal piece safely in place. _

_Millie frowned and unaware that she'd even spoken, the words were out._

"_I'm not deaf."_

_The green male paused after closing the drawer and regarded her curiously, tilting his head and sending his dreadlocks clacking against each other from the rank rings he wore. The dreads weren't even even, Millie realized, before she dissolved into giggles that may or may not have been verbal. Even even. They were all different lengths, something she'd never seen before. Some were long, some were short. It looked like he'd gone to a blind barber or got into a fight with a lawn mower. She knew that their dreads weren't dead like her own human hair; they were living and very sensitive. Vsil'jk never made it a secret that he enjoyed her attention centered on them but why were this males so haphazard? Whatever happened to him, Millie was certain it hurt._

_He trilled, which Millie knew meant he was questioning something though she had no idea what, but thankfully her mate did as he answered back with more clicks and clacks. He didn't sound angry, or smell angry. If anything he smelled perfectly at ease, a male who was sure of his own skill and authority even though he was still young. She couldn't say for sure what that smelled like, exactly, besides a combination of things. Moist earth, burning leaves, a slight bite of salty sweat and pure male musk. Millie couldn't help herself, she inhaled noisily and deeply and closed her eyes as she leaned against Vsil'jk's side. She wasn't able to slide an arm around his back since the arm closest to her was still gripping her own, but she snuggled into his ribs all the same with a delirious smile._

"_I love you."_

_Both males trilled. It was hard to say which one vocalized first but to Millie it didn't matter. Her mate didn't understand, but that was okay. She loved enough for the both of them and was tenacious enough to stay the course and eventually, teach him what it meant if he didn't know already. When she opened her reddish brown eyes and gazed up, way up, at him, she kept her silly smile and met his green eyes boldly. It wasn't something anyone did lightly with a Yautja, since eye contact often meant an unvocalized challenge. _

"_I'm not deaf," she murmured again, "and I love you."_

_This time, neither male trilled and instead watched her intently. That was something else Millie was used to by now, the intensity of the stares she'd receive. It only ever bothered her when she was the unfortunate focus of a group. She knew it only took one of them to rend her to pieces, kill her instantly, even accidentally, but she'd been stumbling through life onboard in such a thick fog that several dangers never even registered, let alone triggered her lizard brain's warning of fight or flight._

_It would be an entirely different story once she was well again._

_The clicking and clacking resumed, once her mate had torn those expressive green eyes away from her face and back to the medic. Millie was never certain what her own eyes or face revealed when they looked at each other but whatever it was, it never seemed to annoy Vsil'jk and for that she was grateful. Half the time, even she didn't know what she felt let alone what inadvertently slipped out as expression. It must not be anything bad, since he was rarely the one to look away first and his hackles never lifted. She must be doing something right, right?_

_Her train of thought was cut off however when her mate started forward, further into the room and angled them over to the right by a long high metal table that she was seated on before she knew she was airborne. It always thrilled Millie how Vsil'jk had the strength of a hundred men and could toss her around like a sack of potatoes. She wasn't a small woman so his strength was a big thing. Losing her breath for a moment in an ejected huff of air as her butt plopped onto the table; she blinked hard to clear her vision before realizing that she was now at chin level with him. The table must have been very high for that to happen, but again her thoughts were cut off as Vsil'jk stepped back and away to make room for the green male to stand before her._

_He was clicking and clacking again, only this time at her. Surely he knew that she had no idea what he was saying? Spreading her knees to make room for the medic as he came closer, she idly swung her lower legs and rode the high of her delirium with as much grace as she could muster. Looking up into his scarred face, she frowned._

"_I'm sorry sir, but I don't understand."_

_The medic trilled but didn't cock his head. Instead, he angled a yellow eyed look at Vsil'jk who stood just off to the side before lifting the ear device he'd retrieved earlier and clickity clacked some more. Millie wasn't sure what he wanted, so she simply nodded stupidly and tried her best to keep her eyes open. The fight to focus had long since escaped her and the need to sleep was overwhelming but she gripped the front edge of the table and turned her face to the side, presenting her right ear._

_The device was fitted in place with little fanfare but great caution for the medic's claws as they brushed against her thin skin. The last thought Millie had before the eruption of static in her ear made her tense was that it didn't look like a hearing aid that she was used to at all. It was metal, like everything on the ship._

"_Can.. understand?" It droned in a monotone, as the medic clicked again._

_Millie's eyes shot to the size of saucers as she darted looks between her mate and the medic before her. She understood him. She could hear! Until that moment, she never considered herself deaf as she'd always known it on Earth but with this contraption that could make sense of their noises, she realized, humbly, just how deaf in miscomprehension she'd always been up until that point. It brought tears to her eyes and instinctively her gaze sought Vsil'jk and held with a passion that made her chest ache and her heart race._

"_Yes I understand. Vsil'jk," his name was still badly mangled with her human throat and tongue and she coughed often after attempting it from the tickle it created but not now, "say something to me. Please, anything!"_

_Vsil'jk twitched his mandibles, inadvertently, while he thought before finally settling on a question that had always plagued him. "I love you?"_

_Millie thought her heart would arrest as she laughed in a strained way, watching his tan and red countenance so at ease and so close that she could reach out a hand and touch him it she wanted. She did. Her fingertips grazed his cheek, or what passed for his cheek between his upper mandible and lower on the right side. The skin was thin but just as smoothly scaled as the rest of him. "Yes, I love you."_

_His tusks clacked together thoughtfully and his eyes darted away for a moment before returning to her. He didn't even have to speak for her to recognize the confusion that she was used to seeing whenever she'd admit to her feelings or wax poetic about what a fine male he was._

"_What does that mean?" When his green eyes reconnected with hers, so full of longing to understand and so human in that way, Millie blinked hard several moments to keep the tears at bay before she answered with a sad smile._

"_It means that I love you. I want to make you happy. I'll always be proud of you, always be by your side and fight for you and with you. You're the only male I ever see, the only one I want. I'd die for you. I love you." She almost couldn't finish towards the end, her throat clogging with a hard knot of emotion that she coughed away. How could she make him understand? She needed him to understand._

_'Or to make yourself understand,' her mind traitorous mind whispered. _

_Vsil'jk remained still and composed, not a muscle twitched or fluttered as far as Millie could tell so she simply waited and basked in his appearance. She knew he was still confused, and she couldn't blame him. What little she'd learned of his society thus far proved that while they all had emotions, they didn't spend time dwelling or analyzing them and only seemed to react with confidence to anger, lust and curiosity when dealing with each other. The Hunt was a different matter entirely, and Millie simply wasn't in the right mind set to ponder that. _

_'Stockholm Syndrome,' was the next text book whisper from her mind. 'It's the only thing that makes sense for why you could love an alien who hunted you.' Millie shivered._

_His mandibles fluttered for a moment or two and his gaze dropped away a few times as he tried to ponder her words. Millie, despite feeling faint and high from malnutrition, started to grow anxious so she trailed her thumb along the line of his lower right tusk._

"_I willingly left Earth for you. My family, my friends, everything I knew I left behind because you asked me to follow you. I'm a stranger in a strange land and I don't fit in. I know that, but it doesn't bother me near as much because I have you. I love you." She was fully choking up now and couldn't continue, but hoped beyond hope that he would understand. Millie closed her eyes tight before opening them again to watch her mate, hand trembling on his foreign face she waited for his reaction._

_'You spin so well your major should've been public relations in college.' The snake in her mind simply wouldn't shut up! His response broke her heart all the same._

"_I hear your words, Mill-ee, but I still do not understand." He huffed, whether irritated at himself or her she couldn't say but his green eyes never lost their luster. "You are Ooman, pet. To have pet is great honor, especially for me, so young. I am great Hunter," he boasted with a fist pound to his puffed up chest, "can provide food and keep Mill-ee safe. Living trophy, great honor."_

_Suddenly Millie was too tired to keep her eyes open, so she let them close as something within her chest contracted painfully. He was so beautiful with his tan undertone and red highlights. He was big and strong, smelled like Earth and male, but that didn't provide the balm to her soul right now like it usually did. Even with the translator it seemed she was doomed to failure and it called into question why she'd even recklessly thrown away her life on Earth to be with him, on a whim. A silly, fairy tale minded whim that was fraught with pain, strife and danger._

_'Stockholm..,' repeated the snake. This time it even slurred the 's' sound. It wasn't the first time this particular voice had whispered strange, gut wrenching things to her. Things she probably should think about in all seriousness but what if her current state had brought it on in the first place? Did that make it something she should dismiss?_

_The medic whose name she still didn't know had been oddly silent throughout their exchange but his actions made her vaguely curious none the less. He would look between the both of them, despite being shorter than Vsil'jk by half a head and chuff loudly to scent the air. Millie knew their sense of smell was top notch, but she had no idea what clues he picked up as he tasted the scents between them. It didn't matter._

"_What's your name?" She asked tiredly, blinking her eyes in the medic's direction and seeing him clearly for the first time since she'd entered the clinic. He had even more scars than her mate did and many more rank rings, she noted. Older, then._

"_Jm'aal." He trilled with a tilt of his unevenly shorn head, studying her as openly as he had when they first stumbled, her actually, through the doors. "You are Ooman."_

"_Human," Millie correctly with a swallow and a sigh. "Hugh-men." Or was it 'man? Hugh-man or Hugh-men?' It didn't matter._

"_Ooman, that is what I said." He chirped in response. Unlike her mate there was no confusion on his part, he seemed entirely with it in a way that Millie wasn't. She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously and tried hard to pronounce his name._

"_Juhm-all?"_

_The medic snorted despite not having a real nose, and this time it was obvious he wasn't scenting the air. He was mildly insulted and tossed his shorn dreads lazily about his shoulders before attempting to correct her. _

"_Jim-eye,aul."_

_Millie paused and rolled the name around her voice box a few times, clearing her throat and coughing no less than she usually did when trying to accurately pronounce 'Vuh-sill-jick', her mate. Half the time she wanted to say, 'Vassel-jinx' which he never appreciated if his affronted, low tone growl and cutting motion through the air with a large clawed hand was any indication._

"_Jim-eye,aul," she cleared her throat. "Why is there no fog in here?"_

_This time when the medic trilled, her translator picked up on his question and answer more easily than before._

"_Why? This is clinic. Many wounds. Moisture bad for wounds, mean infection. No infection in clinic. No fog." Millie wondered why he didn't say 'duh' at the end. Still though, the idea of infection bothered her. Jm'aal must've noticed because he simply stood still as a statue in front of her and slowly, owlishly, blinked his yellow eyes. _

_"I don't.. understand. From what I've seen unless one of you blows up, bleeds out or loses your head you all seem to make miraculous recoveries very quickly. I've never seen any signs of infection. Is there even time for that?" Millie held her breath when the medic just blinked again in slow motion. To him, she must seem like the dumbest human ever to live compared to their medical advancements but in her own mind her logic was sound. She witnessed facts and stated her conclusion._

_Finally after another long, tense moment, Jm'aal simply snuffled and his skin rippled. Millie's eyes nervously darted in fascination to follow the movement. The only affected areas seemed to be the shoulders, upper arms and the upper portion of the chest before dying out completely. Even the medic's green coloring seemed somehow.. brighter. Cleaner, more crisp. She was hesitant to stretch the description into 'metallic' but it was undeniable that when he rippled, the brighter light in the clinic seemed to make those parts of him.. glow. It helped that all he wore was his loincloth, which she finally noticed as her eyes continued to track down his body._

_Millie had never been in the clinic before, not while conscious at any rate so she couldn't say for certain but she could've sworn that the other medics who traversed the hallways during her stay here had been robed in tunic like fashion. Her brow furrowed and itched, the skin a bit too tight across her bones from her lack of eating so she idly scratched without thinking. Where was his tunic? _

_She was just about to ask when the words died in her throat. The same time the wall of musk hit her nose, the accompanying low volt growl tickled the small hairs on her body like static electricity. It tickled and tingled, pleasant. Deceiving. The translator simply crackled with white noise. Millie didn't dare breathe let alone move a muscle. One of them was angry. Very angry. She should've known better than to stare but it was too late now! Biting back a mewl of submission, she waited with her head down, staring at a spot on the visible floor through shaggy bangs and wavering vision. _

_Vsil'jk was a red and tan blur of movement, striking before his high pitched bark had time to register. A meaty thud sounded from directly in front of her and coupled with his noise of reprimand Millie startled despite herself. Clenching her eyes tight, her back muscles seized and she gripped the edge of the table hard enough to bruise. Before rational thought and mental inventory could report that 'she' hadn't been the one hit, she was blindsided by what felt like a fleshier cat 'o nine tails against her left side and head._

_Millie gasped and her eyes sprang open, stinging with tears as the many metal rank rings on Jm'aal's dreads added a sharper bite to the duller slaps when he'd immediately spun to face Vsil'jk's challenge. The roar that exploded from the medic was something ripped right from the Jurassic era and just as loud. It reverberated off the metal in the clinic, shredding her lungs with concussion like ripples and threatened to shatter her eardrums! Millie gave a shrill cry of fear and immediately covered her ears, bending low over her lap. God, they were going to fight and it was all her fault!_

_The roar eventually ran out of air, scaling down into a rumbled but no less loud growl as Millie cocked her head and dared, just for a moment, to watch as Jm'aal transformed from meager medic to full blown Warrior with surprising ease. He stretched himself to his full height, still shorter than Vsil'jk but add to that his squared shoulders, puffed chest and raised hackles he seemed to dwarf even the room itself. _

_Vsil'jk had wisely retreated a couple steps, away from the table towards open ground but he was no less posturing, simply hedging his bets or so it seemed to Millie. Glancing at his hands, she noticed they kept opening and closing as if unsure and on his next step back he seemed to stop himself, rocking forward again as if to erase it. _

_This just panicked Millie even more. She didn't want them fighting, especially not because she'd lost control enough to do something as stupid as open staring but it was Vsil'jk's job to punish her! He was her mate. If he backed down now, if he didn't assert his dominance on her behalf then she'd be Jm'aal's responsibility to discipline!_

_'Or anyone's...' the slithery tongued snake whispered in her mind. 'You heard what he called you. A pet, a trophy. Not his mate. You're the delusional one.'_

_Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!_

_The amount of musk in the air was staggering and if Millie had been standing it would've knocked her back several feet but it was the undercurrent of violent tension that had her clenching inner muscles and thighs to keep her bladder intact. Oh god, please. Please! She knew that through rank, Jm'aal topped Vsil'jk but her mate was only a YoungBlood, a very new one at that so the only ones under him were UnBloods. They couldn't out right challenge Vsil'jk, they hadn't yet earned the right so the threats to Millie came from everyone else. If he backed down even once.._

_Millie couldn't even complete the thought. With every step the medic stalked, Vsil'jk seemed to rally. He hadn't moved except to spread his stance and chuff, breathing hard, but his trunk like legs seemed to grow roots, keeping him in place. Maybe, maybe there was a chance? She bit her lower lip hard enough to taste blood, wanting so badly to cry out, 'Fight! Fight for me!' but she didn't dare so instead she screamed it internally until her head felt like it was going to explode. _

_Jm'aal was twitching, various muscles snapping and popping under his green skin as if holding himself on a very short leash. His shoulders, his biceps, his thighs. Otherwise from all outward appearances, he seemed calm and serene with his arms hanging down and out from his sides like an odd alien showdown in the OK Corral. They were still tossing growls and tusk splintering clacks at each other that her translator didn't seem to have any conversion for but they weren't moving. No more testosterone tango of advance and retreat. Was it a stand off?_

_Time seemed to stand still. It did that a lot lately, too much in Millie's opinion and no matter how advanced their technology one of these days she knew her heart would simply explode and stop, unable to keep beating under the strain of constant stress._

_The only thing keeping her from pitching completely forward and off the table was her painfully rigid posture, body on lock down over her knees. She could feel the sweat rolling down her spine, bursting on her upper lip and soaking her temples. 'Please, please, please!' Every fiber of Millie's being was willing Vsil'jk to meet her eyes. To flick his gaze her way for just a moment. If he could take strength from her, see how scared she was and how much she believed in him, how much she needed him to-_

_Jm'aal took another anticipatory step forward..._

_...Vsil'jk took another deferential step backward._

_Millie promptly threw up and pitched off the table, mid-heave._

Something wasn't right. Her instincts seemed to know before the rest of her, as she felt herself being pulled weightlessly through a grey fog. The sensation of being lifted was odd as well and Millie was instantly, sluggishly, confused. Had someone found her? Had they just now lifted her up into their arms to carry her back to the ship?

For a moment she struggled to make sense of time and space. Her last thoughts had been the memory of falling off the clinic table but she knew for a fact that the next thing she remembered after the incident was waking up much as she was now, but already laid out on yet another table. No, no it was a bed. It was soft under her bruised body, not the rocks and unevenness she could still feel at her back. Was she here, or there?

More to the point, where was 'here', now? God she was tired. Millie wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, back to where ever she'd been, whichever level of unconsciousness she'd sunk to when the memories came but she couldn't. Why?

Shifting pressure and it was increasingly growing more uncomfortable. She tried shifting around to ease it but suddenly there wasn't as much wiggle room in her little tomb of corpses as there'd been before. That took care of the 'where is here' problem. Feeling more awake now than before, she turned her burgeoning focus on the pressure she felt.

It had to be the Xeno body above her. They couldn't regenerate could they? Her pulse spiked and her breathing kicked up, painfully reminding her of way too much at once. _No, its body is still slack, still dead. _Was someone trying to yank it away from her? Had she been found like she first thought? God it was almost too much to hope, and elation soared before she could think better of it. She had to alert them somehow!

The first time she tried to speak, all that met Millie's ears was a half dead rasping sound so after forcing herself to swallow what little saliva she had left, reawakening her raw and bloody throat, she was about to try again when she heard it.

A high pitched, spittle splattering hiss of another alien just above her head.


	4. Chapter 4

**Action packed this time. Thank you again to all reviewers, your comments and criticisms are more than welcomed. I don't own or make any money from Aliens/Predator but Millie is my own making.  
**

_Oh god, not another one! _Thankfully before Millie's panic made her do something stupid in its rush to explode, her jaw clamped shut and she ground her teeth as much as she did her closed eyes. Breathe, keep breathing. _Do not freak out again. Not now!_

Of course that was much easier thought than done. She might not have received any kind of fight training like her mate had but she _could _control her body. She had to start remembering that. Playing any kind of sport professionally, or at least well enough to ride a full scholarship on required the same skills the Yaut's had. Endurance, stamina, patience, quick thinking. Millie had to keep herself calm.

The second alien had to have been alerted by all the mindless screaming she'd done earlier during her breakdown. Trapped in her tomb, there were simply too many factors to keep her hidden otherwise. The rank smells, the blocking of any heat signals, the pollution of all the ash in the air. They could hear. They were curious.

Did it know she was human by the sounds she'd made? Millie wasn't stupid enough to think that even to an inexperienced alien she'd sound like a Yaut or one of their kind, even if her voice could pitch into the same range as their shrieks sometimes. No, it wouldn't be fooled. Then again it had spent its entire life on this planet so did it even know what a human was? Probably not. It saw her as some undiscovered prey then in more ways than one.

Blessing or curse? The first one she'd killed hadn't seemed to care what she was, then again it was already amped up to fight and she had challenged it.

The second one was still shuffling above her, out of view. Her body and ears seemed to be more in sync now. If her body felt pressure on her lower legs, her ears immediately registered accompanying noises. It allowed her to judge distance in a way even if she couldn't tell if the Xeno was rummaging and poking with its head or arms.

It had to know she was buried beneath its friend, right? Millie didn't understand why it wasn't already attacking. Flinging the dead alien off of her and pouncing in its place. She was sure it wouldn't appreciate knowing it was giving her time to calm down, to plan and she had to use that to her best advantage now. The wrist blades were still firmly gripped in her left hand but without the aid of her right to reattach it and activate it, it was now useless.

Her earlier plan to roll the dead body off of her and squirm out was long gone. If she so much as made a fingertip visible to her new enemy it wouldn't hesitate. Could she wait it out? Was there a chance it would get bored and just amble away before too long? Did she have that kind of time? She'd wasted so much already.

Since the live alien hadn't made any sudden moves of discovery or attack some of her initial panic had faded away to leave her feeling drained again and weightless, like the only thing keeping her soul from leaving was the burning ball of lead in her stomach.

Vsil'jk...

Millie's heart slammed so hard into her ribs that she winced in pain and went tense all over. How she could have forgotten him for even a millisecond? He was the reason she was on this planet in the first place, fighting to find him, and all this time she'd been reliving memories as if he was already dead, as if that was all she had left, as if even the memories weren't worth the effort anymore if all she was going to do was lay here.

_How dare you! _Her mind screamed at itself even as it wanted to shrink back as a flood of shame, humiliation and embarrassment chased through her veins. _What kind of mate are you, anyway? That's right! You're a useless, weak, pathetic Ooman. You're a pet to be pat on the head and led around on an invisible leash like a dog. _

The next time her heart slammed into her ribs it was fueled by mounting anger. Millie opened her eyes and though she saw only darkness, it felt like her gaze was locked on the stalking alien she was intently listening to. She'd always had a hot, volatile temper but it was buried deep, deeper than she was currently physically buried under a corpse. It took a long, determined stick to reach it and even longer to fully wake it up.

_Remember when you were nine, and Jed Watson shoved a stick in the back tire spokes of your bike because he thought it'd be funny?_

Millie's eyes narrowed to slits and she ground her teeth again until her jaw ached.

_Then when you were thirteen your best friend Mary Adams was supposed to catch you as you fell backwards during one of Coach Robinson's team building exercises but she let you fall instead just because your math partner for class that week was Tommy Jerkins, her long time crush?_

Millie's hands fisted until her nails cut into her palms and her breaths were short.

_Don't forget your seventeenth birthday! One year since your Dad's diagnosis and your Mom had gotten so drunk that she forgot all about the cake in the oven and went to pass out on the couch instead? By the time you drove home from practice the entire downstairs was thick with smoke, the detector on the ceiling was going nuts and you almost tripped over your Dad as he lay in the doorway between the living room and kitchen, coughing himself to death and too weak to move?_

Millie's head pounded and she started to shake.

_Or your first year in college when you accepted Bo Connell's invitation to attend his frat party with your dorm room mate and some of her friends? He'd gotten unbelievably drunk and cornered you in the downstairs bathroom, pawing all over you and slobbering down your neck? You'd had a few too many yourself and almost couldn't push him off, then he got mad and spit out that you were a bitch so you hauled off and slugged him in the face? You broke his nose and blood was everywhere. Remember how pissed off Coach was that you had to pull out of three games because your hand, while not broken, was too bruised to pitch or grip a bat? _

Millie was soaked in sweat from head to toe, more so now than ever before.

_Ah, and then there's your third year in college when you struggled to pull your weight in Professor Chandler's English Lit class! What was it he said? Oh yes. 'Miss Miles, if not for your exceptional skill at swinging a bat like a Neolithic cave woman I doubt any college would lower their academic standards enough to admit you.'_

Millie's lips twitched with the need to snarl and bare her teeth.

_Would the coup de grace moment be two weeks from graduation when you innocently thought you were alone out on the field, cracking balls pitched from the machine into the advancing twilight? So lost in your own thoughts as you are now that the last bittersweet moment of your once oh so normal life, was cracking off a shot that would've been your best your home run ever if it hadn't struck the invisible alien in the head?_

Vsil'jk...

Millie sucked in a harsh gasp, a sound that thundered even past the roaring in her ears.

The shuffling alien must have heard it because the next thing Millie knew a screeing pitch of confirmation broke the bubble of memories and the corpse above her was shoved roughly aside, not all the way but enough to finally give her stinging eyes another view of the planet's sky. It was still dark; the halo effect of the twin moons still giving off a watery, almost ethereal kind of light but it seemed slightly brighter than before.

Would it be morning soon? Maybe that's why it seemed brighter. Or maybe she had been trapped in her dark little cocoon too long and her eyes were still adjusting.

She was ready. Her battered body flooded full of angst driven adrenaline, bordering on a rage that hadn't quite peaked but soon would. She felt like a bomb with a rapidly burning fuse. The outcome of this had always been inevitable. One of them would die only this time, it wouldn't be her. Millie gave in to the red haze slowly flooding her vision and let her lips do what they wanted to. Snarl. Right in the pressed close face of the new alien.

The light was gone again as its oblong, shiny head blotted it out. It smelled like a month old refrigerator left to rot in the middle of July, and when its scalding breath slammed into her from inches away Millie refused to let it trigger her gag reflex again. As sadistically satisfying as projectile vomiting might have been, she couldn't risk it.

There was an odd, wet peeling sound before strings, drops and globs of something hot and sticky splattered onto her face and neck. Millie startled and gasped again but otherwise kept her instincts locked down. It was just drool, or supposed it was, and since it wasn't burning her alive like its blood would she held still and suffered through it.

_Remember Bo slobbering on you in college, stay angry._

The blasts of noxious breath kept coming along with the saliva for several seconds as it apparently smelled her for the first time or took stock of her however it could. There were no eyes on these things yet they stalked and killed proficiently. Would it simply shoot out its inner mouth and be done with her while she was still trapped?

_Cornered in the bathroom, wait for your moment to strike._

God, what would that feel like? Would it be quick and painless like most assumed gun shots to the head were? It worked on the same principle, as much as Millie could figure but that inner mouth was a lot larger than a bullet and without meaning to, she shuddered.

The alien caught onto the movement quickly, hissing more spittle and gouging its claws against the armored dead bodies on either side of her. The sound pierced and grated, like a crushing car accident in slow motion that had her heart racing again instead of just thumping loud and strong like the push pedal on a bass drum.

When it leaned in further and experimentally knocked its mouth as a whole against her head a couple times, Millie was certain that it was curious. It wasn't in any great rush to kill her, not unless she attacked and evoked the gun shot of its inner jaws but her anger was slowly fading with inaction and she could feel the panic creeping in again.

Vsil'jk...

She needed to gain its full attention without pushing too far because anymore knocks of their heads together and Millie was libel to do something extremely stupid, like head butt the damn thing back! _Wait that might actually work.._

Millie didn't give herself time to think; she simply pulled in a ragged breath and did what she wanted to. She banged her forehead as hard as she dared against the upper sloping curve of its head just above the jaws and hissed as nasty as she could. If her mouth wasn't so dry she'd get the added satisfaction of drooling on it, too.

Its next hiss turned into a startled shriek, intensifying the throb that was spreading across Millie's forehead. Who knew head butts hurt that much and if they did, why would anyone do it unless forced to? Biting back a groan as her eyeballs suddenly felt too big for their sockets, it was show time.

The alien jerked back quickly and the next thing Millie knew, had cast the corpse pinning her off into the distance like it was nothing more than a rag doll. Instead of diving right back on top of her in its place though, this one took a few moments to gloat or maybe plan its next move. Either way it had hauled itself up on just its two back legs, angled its oil slick looking head into the air and let out a scree to all and sundry.

Was it calling for help or something? Indecision roiled in Millie's gut just like the choking dust motes that still hung thick and low in the air. Should she make her move now, try and attack? Surge up out of her trench like a war crying soldier? She didn't know how long the screeing would last but doubted it would be long enough to try and reattach the burdensome wrist blades but what other weapons did she have?

In her pocket..

It was too late. She'd no sooner remembered her cache store from Earth when it sprang forward like a pouncing lion. Millie's vital organs shut down, even her heart in the split second before impact but somehow in a knee jerk reaction of instinct her abs tightened and her legs swung up, knees towards her chest just as body connected with boots.

The blow was tremendous, especially on her joints. It felt like jumping from a height and crash landing on asphalt. Her ribs screamed and she lost her breath but when neither leg gave way to a bone break she grit her teeth and pushed. Pushed so hard, the only part of her back still in contact with the ground was the upper part of her shoulders and the nape of her neck. _Jesus, it's like bench pressing a Buick!_

The alien wasn't nearly as phased as Millie however, but more frustrated as it kept screeing and trying to dig in with its back legs to press forward. A battle of wills, a contest of strength, but the bodies and debris all around made for extremely unstable foot holds and it constantly kept losing its balance, teetering Millie in the process and making her quads tremble and burn in a way that spring training and jump squats never had.

On its next lunge forward, it stretched out that impressive head and tried again to drive its feet into the ground, reaching viciously with its arms this time to try and grab hold of her head. Millie's legs were fully extended, knees locked and wobbly and she cried out at the last second as whatever it was standing on gave way beneath it. The tips of those razor claws caught her across both cheeks, scoring paths of agony that bled and stung.

Her hands were useless in defense as they gripped her hips to help support her position, the backs of her arms sealed to the ground. If not for the tight wedge she was in she might've lost her entire face or head had it caught hold of her more securely!

The light of the twin moons cast the Xeno into silhouette, a solid black shape of writhing determination as it kept wailing and lunging. She could even make out its tail as it whipped, violent back and forth wags that split the air in harsh cracks. It couldn't risk striking at her with the bladed tip, not yet, not without an opening but Millie gave another despairing cry as her boots kept skidding on the hard surface of its chest.

If this kept up much longer, her legs would give out entirely! It was one thing to keep its weight off of her but another when it kept thrashing and she had to counter balance. In a last ditch effort, she rotated her ankles to try and pivot her heels in search for a flatter surface but its chest was peaked outwards like a mountain along the center line and man made rubber slid like ice skates down each side, bringing it closer.

The alien screeched again, a more satisfied sound, just as the "NO!" screamed from Millie's throat. Impossibly, her boots caught again and this time didn't feel in danger of losing purchase. When it had gone for her head with both hands its shoulders had bowed forwards, creating small pockets between the joint and its collarbones. With her feet now secured she pressed the creature up again, fighting to regaining any inches she might've lost just seconds before. Adrenaline was bursting through her system so hard and fast that Millie felt faint but inhumanly strong at the same time.

Almost as if it sensed her small victory, the Xeno lunged again with its long head. The snapping outer jaws met nothing but empty space, spraying and drooling more saliva to mix with the blood and sweat that threatened to work its way into Millie's wide, terrified eyes. Another lunge brought it a fraction closer and those inner jaws sprang out like a harpoon right for her face and it wasn't taking any chances this time.

The pain and horror of what Millie felt was indescribable. Its inner mouth connected with her forehead in the same instant it latched onto the outside of her legs and dug in deep with all claws. Surprise registered first so instead of a blood curdling scream she merely gave a startled cry; the accompanying surge of more adrenaline had her pressing the alien up again, extending her spine and curling her toes until they cramped.

She wasn't dead, but she was definitely dazed. Its inner teeth had punched against her upper forehead near her hairline and snapped shut, the tiny canines scoring right through flesh to score shallow notches in bone. The blood simply poured out now, running thin and hot to soak into her hair. She didn't know if her forehead was still attached or if it would flap forward and down if she sat up but this needed to end and soon!

The alien knew it had scored a direct hit and the next scree was so loud it vibrated her eardrums. It tried several more attempts to finish what it started but when its inner jaws kept meeting thin air this time, it tried lunging and driving forwards again to close the distance and lobotomize her once and for all.

Millie didn't have a choice. She had mere seconds before her legs gave out entirely so she took as great a breath as her diaphragm could stand and made her attack.

Vsil'jk...

Dropping her legs down like a plummeting elevator slammed her body back against the ground and forced her bent knees out to the sides, turning the tables on her opponent. Startled, the alien released her and planted its large hands on the armored bodies beside her to catch its weight. She had meant to trick it into thinking it had won, and it obviously did as it slowly raised its massive head, repositioning its dripping mouth directly above her like one of Pavlov's dogs. Its lips were even quivering.

Vsil'jk...

In slow motion the lips peeled back, its hissing grew louder and its outer mouth started to open wide. Millie attacked. With a near Herculean effort she flexed her lower body like a wound too tight spring and screamed so loud her lungs threatened to turn inside out. The alien was suddenly being propelled up and away from her again so it did the only thing it knew how to do. The inner mouth struck out with such force that when the strange appendage reached its limit it quaked and strained as Millie's left hand latched onto the length of it with a death grip. It was slippery and slimy, pulsating and ridged.

The alien reared back in fear and disbelief, pushing off with its hands and scrambling to get its legs solid beneath it without completely toppling over backwards. The reaction was so fast and abrupt that Millie gave another cry as she was tugged forward and up along with it, unwilling to let go until she let fly with her right hand in a bruising uppercut that any male would've been damn proud of.

Vsil'jk...

Those outer teeth were just as sharp as they looked because the inner mouth was bitten right off. Her upper body suddenly falling backwards and her legs still pushing, Millie was thrust away from the now hysterical alien and landed hard, half sprawling and bouncing back onto prone bodies that littered the landscape.


	5. Chapter 5

**Finally got this next chapter done, sorry for the long wait! This one's rated more towards M, due to language. The more 'blows' Millie takes the more her mind warps a bit so lots of flashbacks here mixed with the present, more cliffhangers, and the introduction of a new character.**

Millie hit the armored ground like a dropped piano, crashing and bouncing a slight bit as she slid and cried out against the angular metallic surfaces before finally stopping with a star burst blow of her head against something. Literally going blind from the force of the hit, she rocked to a full stop as animal instinct kept trying to pull breath into her wheezing, shocked lungs.

It was impossible to tell which way was up or down, right or left. Her own body, beaten, tried and bloody gave no clues except for the radiating pain of aches while she lay there, shallowly gasping and panting, struggling to bring in enough air to keep the full faint she felt creeping in on her at bay.

Her hands were firmly clenched, the one empty but the other full and she couldn't bring herself to loosen her grip enough and relax. Millie couldn't process how her body was still primed for a fight while her brain, the center of her being, seemed to be miles away. Even the blood flowing unrestricted into her eyes barely registered as more than a burning, blinding pain to add to the jack hammering in her head. Trying to blink and clear her vision did nothing but filter the view before her in a red haze that made no sense.

Directly in front of her, the alien screed so loud that her headache shot from agonizing to deadly until it stumbled on its hind legs and tripped its uncoordinated way away from her, almost falling half a dozen times as its forelegs clawed frantically at its oblong head and the corded length of its throat. It was suffering.

Millie barely watched it through the blinding fog of blood and reactionary tears in her eyes but she saw enough to know that it wasn't a threat anymore, not right now and her heart shifted gears into a lower setting, slowing as she finally went lax where she lay.

The action of her Clan was over the next ridge, well beyond the panicking alien dancing and tumbling in her unreliable vision. Cannon blasts burst color over the harsh line of rugged hills in the distance, quickly followed by muffled, echoed explosions and other clashing sounds of chaos and war.

Love drove her to try and sit up, to try and take a full breath and roll on to her hands and knees but damage stamped those actions with a firm and painful 'No' that left her locked tight and whimpering as she tried to wriggle like a worm to right herself.

Was this it? Was this to be the end of her? Left to cringe and bleed to death on the backs and fronts of her Clan mates on some distant, unnamed planet that was over run with Xeno's? Groaning, Millie rolled forwards, the hand under her trapped between her trembling thighs with nails gripping as she touched her bloody cheek to cool, smooth metal.

The alien was well away now, half its size pitted against the twin moons as it kept struggling to breathe. Airy, sloppy wet sounds rent the air followed by deep coughs rattling with clots and clogs in the throat. It was dying slowly, painfully and dancing out of her sight.

It might not be wise, but Millie was powerless to stop her eyes from closing, bloody tears tracking down as she shuddered in many shallow painful breaths. She couldn't go on like this. She was human, weak, breakable. She wasn't a Yaut. Her hope to find her mate was one in a million on this planet yet even as she prayed for sleep and rest her gut instinct screamed and cramped to get up, to move.

Groaning, Millie shoved herself over on to her back, her right arm flinging to bang against yet another unidentified body while the left cringed at the impact and curled against her chest with its prize.

For the briefest moment she wasn't anything except a living being, breathing harshly in and out while staring up blurrily at an alien sky obscured by dust motes, thin scuttling cloud cover and triple haloed stars twinkling in the distance.

"Stupid Ooman," was the guttural growl that came from somewhere behind her at the same time that a bright search light or maybe a landing light, passed directly over head. The glare was so intense, so pure that it blotted out everything in the sky and Millie stared, blinded. The powerful downdraft was awakening, stirring up the powdery, porous like surface of the planet as the Clan ship cruised by. Another one was fixing to join the fight, followed by another as the lights kept coming. Blinding, piercing, compelling.

"_Silly Ooman," said a rumbling male voice from above her head, triggering her flighty lashes to flutter. _

_The light was blinding, a pure white directly overhead along with gusting blasts of heated air that pinned her hair beneath her and warmed her lungs as she continued to breathe in and out._

"_Mm," she groaned softly, closing her eyes again and flexing what parts she could like her toes and fingers. They moved, curled. She was intact but under some kind of sheet as a fabric like substance shifted against her skin as she wriggled on a flat surface._

"_Silly, silly Ooman," the voice came again, startlingly close yet she couldn't seem to summon the energy to do anything about it beyond twitching and fussing, struggling through lethargy. _

_Her right ear keyed in on beeps, blips and buzzes that sounded vaguely mechanical while her left was tuned in to a whirring noise that didn't make any sense. Her feet were rubbing compulsively against each other; toes curling yet her arms didn't seem to move._

"_Wha…" was all Millie managed. Her skin felt warm, prickly from the drafts while her body buzzed pleasantly with various muscle ticks, stretches and relaxation. It almost felt like being trapped in a small car for a very long drive and then stretching to the sky once the engine cut off and you were standing again._

_The air over her face fluttered, choppy waves breaking against her features as the same male voice murmured, "Silly Ooman, weak."_

_Weak? Millie didn't feel weak. Tired maybe but not weak, yet her limbs wouldn't do exactly what she wanted. Her arms felt restricted, so her legs stretched, bent and kicked out instead as she squirmed._

"_What?" her voice croaked._

"_Weak," the male voice grated again. "Weak Ooman. Not eating. Bad."_

_Millie's brow furrowed at that and she twisted her lips, struggling to make sense of the words through the blanket of almost consciousness. The sheet over her, whatever it was, felt as smooth as silk and liquid cool as water. She groaned before she could stop herself, not understanding her reactions as her chest arched up._

"_Tired," she croaked in correction._

_"Sei-i, weak. Not eating. Not good. Silly Ooman."_

_Not eating? Millie struggled to understand, her stomach so sore that the arch of her body pained it sharply and she gasped before moaning her way back down. _

"_Food… doesn't like me."_

_A chortle met her statement, another gust of warm air but this time focused and concentrated enough to bath over her face with a smell that tinged on something vaguely familiar. _

"_Ooman need food. Naxa not enough. Silly Ooman. Weak. Sick. Muscled, strong, need protein, not fruit."_

_Millie wrinkled her forehead and struggled through the labyrinth of her mind. Straddling the place of consciousness and sleep was a whole other world of confusion and peace. Her body screamed to shut up, to sink back down into the blissful clouds of unconsciousness while her senses tripped, alerted and struggled to pursue what was next._

"_Makes me sick," she found herself answering automatically. _

_A rumbling growl vibrated the top half of her body, tickling and making the fine hairs on her skin stand up and trip against the fabric covering. Was she naked? She didn't remember stripping down. Maybe this was just a dream._

"_Not tolerant," said the male voice with some sadness layering it. "Make Ooman sick. Not process. Not good. Weak Ooman."_

_Was that her problem? Was she really sick and weak? Flits of thoughts cycled across her brain but too fast or fleeting to catch. She vaguely remembered her steady diet of alien food mainly because of how it came out. Violently, from both ends, and then the sweet sting of Naxa in her nose, on her tongue. That stayed down. But the smell in her nose now didn't match anything in recent history._

"_Your breath," Millie murmured. "Smells like cabbage."_

_Silence met her ears, until, "What is caw-bige?"_

_Millie took a moment to savor the deep timbre of the words, how it seemed to make her skin ripple and her heart beat faster before replying with a faint smile. "Cab-bige. It's a vegetable."_

_Another rumble and then a metallic tinkling, rank rings clinking together. "Cawb-ige. Is good?"_

"_Yeah," Millie breathed, curling her fingers into her palms slowly as she sucked in a great breath. "Is good."_

"Ooman!"

Millie wrinkled her brow as the command broke into her memories, blending, and winding around her current thoughts.

"Ooman?"

"Mm," Millie moaned softly, rolling more onto her back with her knees bent up and her arms akimbo.

"Stupid Ooman."

Letting out a held breath, Millie found herself chuckling painfully as her spine kept arching and dropping whenever the spikes hit.

"Ooman."

She had to be hallucinating, it was the only explanation. Even as the thought hit her, she was still drifting between two worlds of out cold, and semi-here. Memories blending into the present, it was hard to tell what was real or not so Millie groaned out loud and rolled slowly to her other side, tucking her right arm beneath her to push up.

"Leave me alone, damnit, I'm fine!" Her own voice, free of stress floated to her before it broke loudly into a laugh that vibrated the air and cast out leagues beyond where she lay. Millie blinked rapidly and wet her lips, confused at first to find out that the words and laugh weren't from her own body yet it sounded like they were.

Was she fine? Grunting, she pushed up onto her hands and got her knees beneath her, balancing on some poor Yaut's breast plate with her head hung between her shoulders as she kept breathing. Brilliant explosions of light to her right, over the ridge met with almost pure blackness to her left of a dead, still landscape.

"Don't threaten me," her voice sang at her in a low pitch, intent and serious from directly ahead. "I'll kill you, I swear I will."

Millie's brain triggered the memory on the tip of her consciousness before it died and dissipated. She saw a flash of males, tall, broad and strong, angry and crowding her as she stood in the chow line.

"Shut up," she murmured, swallowing tightly past the clog of dusty inhalations in her throat, swaying.

"You take trophies?" her voice came again, indignant yet curious. Instantly, Millie's left hand curled tighter around what she clutched in her palm, something thick, slimy, ridged and now cool.

"Any part of a body is a trophy? Where I'm from it's just the head or sometimes legs that get turned into creepy lamps."

"Stop it," Millie grunted out, breathing heavier as a reedy sound in the distance to her right turned her head though her eyes weren't open. The alien continued to shriek, calling for help perhaps or just out of pain and fear and anger.

"You're going to die, Ooman."

"_Could have died, Ooman." The male voice murmured._

"_Not dead," she retorted, though she couldn't really be sure. Her body felt like it was floating, a part of her yet… not._

"_Could have," the male said. "But didn't. Saved you. Smart medic. Know Ooman's, save Mill-ee."_

_Millie smiled automatically, hearing her name pronounced the way that her mate did, even though it wasn't his voice. Clutching her arms tighter to pull herself up the surface she lay on, she winced slightly at the needle like bite in the bend of both elbows, making her back off._

"_Vsil'jk," she murmured._

_Another rumble met her ears, this one with a slight edge. Grating and acknowledging but not quite right. "H'ko. No."_

"_Vsil'jk?"_

"_Outside," the male voice said, tight and strained now. "Not behave. Young Blood. Want fight. Challenge medic. Banished."_

_Banished? Millie's mind struggled to process that, knowing the definition of the word yet not understanding it in her current situation. She was lying down, so where was her mate? Whimpering, Millie squirmed and clenched her fists above her head, kicking out with her legs as the silken material slid against her. _

"_Vsil'jk?"_

"_H'ko," the male voice husked, his hot breath baking her face as she tensed up in reaction, whining. "Outside. Want fight. Challenge medic. Young Blood. Not fight. Not my Ooman."_

"_Not your human?"_

"_H'ko."_

"_Whose human?" Millie asked, thoroughly confused as she floated in between states, her brain higher than her body, swirling and tired, distant and without a care as she arched again and writhed._

"_Not my Ooman," the male voice said with a low note of sadness, or so Millie thought as she wrinkled her brow and parted her lips for a deeper breath of air. "Not my Mill-ee."_

_A large hot hand touched down on her head then, making her gasp as it rasped, callused, over her hair to the pillow before repeating the motion soothingly. _

"_Wh… who are you?"_

"_Medic. Jm'aal. Not pet. Not my Mill-ee. Not my Ooman."_

"_Jm'aal."_

"_Sei-i, medic."_

"_Not my Yaut."_

"_H'ko," the male voice rumbled softly. "Not your Yautja."_

"_Out… outside?" Millie breathed, fighting now to open her eyes._

"_Sei-i," Jm'aal replied, his large hand casting back over her forehead to remove her bangs, pinning them back as he spoke again. "Ooman mate, outside. Want fight. Not in clinic. Bad for Ooman."_

_Millie's lungs seized inside her chest as she went unnaturally still and quiet without quite knowing why. While she'd heard the words she hadn't retained them, any of them, merely replying on autopilot. This felt different in so many ways but how? Why?_

"_Good Ooman," the medic soothed, his thumb arcing down the bridge of her nose to the tip and up again onto her forehead and into her hairline slowly. Misunderstanding her stillness, he said, "Need rest."_

"_Wha… what did you say?" Millie mumbled. Her heart rate increased as the corresponding monitor to her right sped up its beeping._

"_Good Ooman. Need rest."_

"_N-no," Millie stuttered as her face wrinkled up, trying to think of what came before that. Unable to, she twisted her hips to the side and groaned as her stomach strained again. "Before."_

_More silence, as Millie held her position and concentrated on breathing. In through her nose, cool and crisp in its rush despite the heat from the blast vent overhead and the Yaut crouching above her._

"_Ooman mate outside?"_

_Millie's chest arched again, the sheet tenting and slipping down as she held her breath, fingers clenched into weak fists as the machinery kept signaling her vitals. "Y-yes…"_

_A trill filtered over her face, heavy dreads finally falling down to bump against her shoulders, the sides of her neck and on her upper arms. "Ooman?"_

"_Yuhh…," Millie breathed, swimming fast and furious towards the surface of consciousness now, arms and legs thrashing as her lungs felt constricted, needing more air than she was taking in. _

"_Ooman?"_

_A large thumb coasted again, from her hairline down between her eyes, skating the length of her nose before dipping under to the divot on her upper lip where it hovered._

"_Ooman?"_

"_You," Millie rushed out, her lungs seizing again and prohibiting further words as she moaned and arched her hips off the table, straining before crumpling to the opposite side. _

_A rumble filled the air, vibrating her straining lungs before another large hand touched down on her hip. Gasping in another minor breath, Millie clawed and kicked harder for the surface. This was important. She needed to breech the surface. Arms wanting to flail as if she really was under water, sharp stabbing stings bit into her inner elbows again as she whimpered._

"_Mill-ee," the voice said. Soft, pleading. Not her mate. Not Vsil'jk. The hand at her hip lifted, catching both wrists one at a time in its massive palm before pressing them stationary over her head on the pillow, gently holding. "Calm, Mill-ee."_

"_M-mate," Millie choked out, her hips rolling again to the other side as her feet kicked out, flaring the end of the sheet as humid, warm air billowed underneath to ride up her thighs, bringing goose bumps._

"_Sei-i," said the voice, confused, slightly upbeat. "Mate outside. Calm, Mill-ee."_

_Mate. Her mate. Vsil'jk. Red and tan. Young, confused and full of humor. Mate, from a voice other than her own. Not pet, not just Ooman but mate and her name. Her name. Millie. _

"_Mate…"_

"_Sei-i, mate. Young Blood. Vsil'jk. Outside."_

"_Pet," the word puffed out as her emotions rose through the fog she was in. "Not pet…"_

_Silence greeted her. No breathing, no speaking. Only the various noises of the machines she was apparently hooked up to. A particular beeping was faster than the rest, in time with her heart while the other zinged in a flat monotone, her breathing as she held it. A light blip sounded, high then low over and over sluggishly, out of rhythm and out of place. Her brain couldn't make sense of it._

"_H'ko," the male voice finally bit out tightly as the grip on her wrists increased. "Not pet."_

_Not pet. Mate. Someone was agreeing with her, taking her side finally in all the months she'd been on board the ship. No arguing, no confusion. Was it a dream? A hallucination? No matter how hard her mind kicked, her body responded with only half strength in its writhing, the sheet falling down further. The surface was right there, a watery, wavering diluted light just feet from her consciousness but never attainable. _

"_No pet, Mill-ee. Mate." The male voice said, gusting breath closer now than ever before as she breathed in it. "Vsil'jk, Mill-ee mate. Sei-i?"_

_Millie choked briefly, pressing her head further back into the pillow. "Yes…"_

"_Outside, Mill-ee. Outside clinic. Okay? Okay. Challenge medic, fight Jm'aal. Medic stop. End. Mate lose, would have. Young Blood. Arrogant, full of self. Not medic. Older, tested. Mate, okay. Easy, Ooman. Rest, Mill-ee. Rest."_

_Vaguely Millie felt a thumb or something, coast over her lips as they were slightly parted when she sucked in a deep, body shaking breath and struggled to keep swimming while relaxing. A scent bathed over her that she couldn't ignore, different from her mate, from Vsil'jk. Not just a tang of cabbage but of smoke, metal and salt._

_Moaning softly, Millie's mind battled these confusing signals, craving her mate like a flower craved the sun yet still she reacted to these unfamiliar scents vigorously as her heart continued to pound, the beep of the monitor a staccato rhythm as she slid, slipped and rolled about the table. Who was she struggling to reach? _

"_Mill-ee, rest." The voice said, plaintive as something coasted over her open lips again, catching and dragging as her lower lip pulled to the side. "Weak, sick. Not good. Ooman prey, to target."_

"_Vsil'jk," Millie whimpered, tensing her arms and feeling the bite of something in her inner elbows again, sharp and burning. "Mate. Mine. Love him…"_

"_Sei-i," the voice affirmed as its touch lifted and moved away before smoothing once more down her hairline to the pillow, the shackle on her wrists still tight as she flexed and pulled. "Vsil'jk outside. No fight. Ooman rest. Mill-ee heals. Council question."_

_Council? Millie floundered for a moment, pausing in her mad rush to the surface, sinking slowly, steadily as her mouth worked and her eyes cracked open to the blinding white light above her. Council meant judgment, review. Uncertainty, instability. Her heart spiked and the monitor mirrored that, bleeping crazily as she sucked in air like a gasping fish though her subconscious tensed, jerked and suffered._

"_Why?" Millie gasped, throwing her head back into the male's touch as her fingers curled into her palm, nails digging in tight. _

"_Natural," the voice clicked. "Council concerned. Ooman not well. Taken by Young Blood, not done. Not approved wisely. Ooman strong, feisty, smart. But not well. Mate blamed."_

_Blamed. Millie's heart wrenched and she feebly thrashed again, her hips lifting and lowering the sheet even more, exposing her nakedness yet she didn't care. All that mattered were the words. Mate blamed. What did that mean? _

_Millie made a choking sound, trying to speak. Her throat felt tight, her body so heavy. "Wha… what?"_

"_Council concerned. Young Blood, should not have pets. Not ready. Irresponsible. Immature. Ooman not well. Ooman suffer."_

_Another monitor shot off, squealing an alarm shortly before another one did until all of them were ringing off key rapidly in her panic. Her chest felt tight, her head throbbing, her emotions choking in fear as she fought the table she laid on in earnest now. _

"_Ooman!"_

_Millie cried out as her mind spun with so many thoughts it was crippling. She was fine, fine! Vsil'jk wasn't to blame; it wasn't his fault that her body had a hard time with their food. He was in trouble because of her. _

"_Ooman, be still!"_

"_Wha… happens now?" Mille forced out, feeling even more tired now than before, muscles so sluggish and heavy that she groaned. _

_The rumble above her head washed over her again as she shivered, rocking on the hard table. For the longest time, the male didn't speak. Instead, he kept petting her head, over and over before smoothing down her throat when her head lay back, to her chest and down to her naval where the hem of the sheet lay. Thick fingers curled into it, fisting it._

"_Council decides after trial."_

"_Trial?"_

"_Sei-i, council holds trial. Mate testifies. Superior's testify. I… testify."_

"_To... what?"_

"_Whether or not Ooman should be reassigned."_

_Reassigned? She wasn't a project or an experiment. She was a living being, breathing, with feelings. "M-me?"_

"_H'ko," the voice said sadly as something flitted against her cheeks, mandibles perhaps. "No testify."_

"_W… why not?"_

"_Ooman pet to council. Low life form. Prey. Dumb animal."_

_The monitor's spiked even more as her anger rose and her legs kicked out anew. Her mouth felt awkward, uncoordinated as it gapped open and closed. "No!"_

"_Rest, Mill-ee," the voice said. The hand holding the sheet slowly dragged the light material back up, brushing over her body until tucking it under her chin before releasing. Fingers spreading out, the touch pressed down against her chest, spanning her entire width. _

"_Bad…?" Millie wrung out, her legs still restless. Slowly the hand holding her wrists let go, the backs of broad knuckles drifting down her right arm to her sheet covered chest and lower still, pausing at her hip. She felt all five fingers curl, gripping._

"_If Mill-ee reassigned? New guardian. New mate. No longer Vsil'jk. Older Yautja, wise, calm. Observant. No more Vsil'jk."_

_Millie cried out in the fog of her sleep, a deep lamenting sound that bounced back at her off the walls while she struggled to gulp in more air for the fear climbing her spine, one vertebrae at a time. Kicking, thrashing, drowning in fear she fought against the undertow of the water, gaining a few feet only as it continued to suck her down into the abyss. Her mouth moved with unheard words to the bubbly, muted shrill of monitors. _

_I'm going to die…_

"Ooman, you're going to die." The monotone robotic like voice came again, breaking like a wave across her consciousness followed by a laugh that was neither artificial nor Yaut. Ricocheting against the peaked ridges around them, the haunting laugh bounced back at her from multiple directions as it gained in volume and strength.

"Shut up," Millie breathed, still on her back, clutching her prize to her chest as she rolled onto her left side again while the sky line lit up with blasts, booms and flares of light. "Shut the fuck up."

"Stupid Ooman pet," the voice continued in the monotone, "worthless. You have no honor, just die. Be still and die."

Millie curled her upper lip, thinking of Vsil'jk. The ringing in her head was intense, gonging like church bells at a rapid clip, like the monitors she was once hooked up to as she struggled to get her feet under her this time.

"I'm gonna fucking kill you," she muttered, her mouth watering like she was about to throw up yet she didn't, struggling to her feet unsteadily. Legs feeling like Jell-O, over worked and under rested she staggered and stumbled against the breast and chest plates of the fallen Yaut's' under her, including some alien bodies as she meandered her painful way towards the sound of that taunting voice.

The cannon blasts lit her way as her vision doubled, tripled and tripped her as she kept going, crashing down harshly onto her knees more than once while the haunting voice kept her senses alert.

"Ooman, kill a Yautja? Funny. Stupid Ooman, you would die."

"Shut up!" Millie shouted, stumbling another few feet as she gripped her prize, unknown and unseen against her chest while touching down to the bodies under her feet with her free hand.

"Shut up!" her voice shouted back at her. "You don't know what you're talking about. I'm with him, he's my mate!"

"Yautja don't have Ooman mates'." The robotic voice countered before laughing again. "Ooman's are pathetic prey."

Millie's eyes filled with fresh tears, feeling the lowest she'd been in her entire life. Out of everything she'd been through thus far, nothing compared to this. It tore her to shreds like she was nothing.

"Who are you?" she shouted, her throat tight as she hit down onto her bruised knees again, shocks of pain shooting up her thighs as she whimpered and slowly got back up. The ground was uneven with bodies, shifting as if she was drunk. Too many hits to the head, she figured, as she plotted a new course across them.

"Who are you?" her voice mocked back at her.

Millie narrowed her eyes and lifted her head, dusty, dirty; blurry she focused in on the slight hill leading up the ridge across the way while swaying in place on shaky legs. It could be a dream, could be this time. She didn't recognize her tormentor, not clearly and with each consecutive blast of a cannon and ship passing overhead she couldn't see enough across to the base of the ridge to understand.

"What do you want?" she answered, barking out the sentence as she continued to painstakingly pick her way across the abandoned battle field, hopping and stepping from body to body when the light permitted.

"Stupid Ooman, your prey suffers! It is injured, not dead. This is why Ooman's have no honor."

Millie took another step and struggled to balance on someone's back plate, shifting her weight as she looked down. The vivid bursts of color exploding in the air on the next ridge highlighted her blurry eyes on the shiny, intricate pattern of the body she was standing on.

Tensing her thighs and spreading her arms, she calmed her balance, breathing heavily and coughing in fits to clear the dust and debris from her lungs, leaving her light headed.

"I have honor!" she yelled back.

"You have no honor. You carry your trophy while your prey continues to live and suffer. It is disgraceful. Honorable Warriors are dead all around while you continue to live. Pauk'de Ooman!"

Millie tensed where she stood, fighting a rising wave of anger at the anonymous words. She did have honor. She did! But humans were never supposed to be in direct contact with aliens, including Yauts'. Not her. She'd wounded the alien, it would die eventually. Why did that have to be her problem? Sucking in air, she cautiously turned her head aside to watch, barely, as the alien kept shrieking and struggling around in agony about half a football field away.

Prey wasn't supposed to confront predator. It wasn't right in nature and it didn't feel right in Millie's gut. She'd blindly challenged the first one so it didn't seem unreasonable to her that she didn't want to repeat history! Snarling slightly, she groaned at the pressure in her head and hop scotched her way across a couple more bodies.

"It must die by your hand," the monotone said, "so kill it."

"I can barely walk you asshole! I don't have a weapon anymore either so what do you suggest I do, huh? Pick up a rock and beat it to death? Oh wait, that's right, I'll melt like the wicked witch from all the blood! Better yet, what if it manages to kill me before I can kill it? Then it still suffers so it wouldn't really matter would it?"

"Ooman," the voice called in annoyance.

"Head hunter," Millie called back on instinct. On ship, she hadn't run into many Yaut's who had put up with her presence on sight and even fewer when they'd gotten to know her in the chow line. Multiple flashes kept assaulting her of a large Yaut, not a Young Blood, older. Elite maybe, but the fuzzy body kept appearing in the chow line in her mind behind the four UnBloods.

"Prey," the voice said back with menace, and Millie's knees wobbled. She knew who it was now, if not his name. He'd made sure that her life was a total living hell when interacting with others, even more so than the Young Bloods pestering her or her digestive tract.

Millie froze in place, her mind and body in chaos as she swayed to keep her balance. The head wound to her hairline was still leaking blood into her eyes, tracking down her face like a crying Madonna statue in church and throbbing sharply. Without her eyes, she was completely helpless and just taking the time to keep them blinking rapidly increased the burning sting and spilling tears.

This couldn't be happening. It couldn't. Aliens were one thing to deal with, her injuries yet another but a Yaut who hated her guts made her blood ice over and her stomach want to heave. Indecision kept her rooted in place. She knew that she hadn't been as vigilant as possible since stepping off the ship but if the Yaut was cloaked she wouldn't be able to spot him at all, impaired vision or not. The only thing she had to go on was his voice, or whatever manipulation he used through his mask. Her other senses had to take over. _Please, Paya._

"Name!" she called out, trying hard to sound commanding but the break in her voice didn't help.

"Head hunter," the disembodied sounding voice sneered back.

His reply told her nothing and for a moment, she felt drop dead exhausted as the acoustics of their surroundings kept playing the voice around her, impossible to track besides originating in front her.

Millie's thoughts were so scattered, so energized that she struggled more to order them, make sense of them than she did to even stay on her feet.

"Ooman should have stayed on ship. You are such useless prey."

"_Ooman's have no place on a Yaut ship. Useless."_

_That was all Millie heard before the conversational alien sounds around her immediately quieted and a hard shove slammed against her right side. Her smaller body was propelled against Vsil'jk, her mate's bulky forearm breaking her fall as her ribs exploded in pain when she instinctively gripped her food tray and held it up higher in the air. Even her head managed to whip lash to the side, bouncing off her mate so fast her vision swam. _

_Vsil'jk instantly growled, reaching around Millie's back to shove at the other Yaut's shoulder as his dreads rose, cresting around the back of his head with slowly flaring mandibles. "Do not touch my pet"_

_The aggressive Yaut growled back, barely moving from the shove before spinning to face them both. Millie was still dazed and now trapped between them, her food items scattered about the counter and floor leaving her tray virtually empty, messy. _

"_Bold words for a Young Blood," the male countered, slowly stepping closer, compressing Millie between their two big bodies. "Too young, too stupid to have a pet. Ooman's are trouble and better left as trophies."_

"_My pet is no trouble," Vsil'jk snarled, offended as he spun to face the other and stepped closer. Millie made a gasping sound as their bodies crushed the air from her lungs and she began to struggle. _

"_She?" the other asked in an incredulous tone. "It's built like a male. Do you have tendencies, Young Blood?"_

_Vsil'jk roared in outrage, shoving Millie out from between them with enough force that she hit the ground hard and slid, seeing stars as the two males finally came together, chest to chest. "My pet! The Elder approved and she accepts me," Vsil'jk boldly claimed, fisting his hands at his sides as he inhaled, pressing the other male back slightly. "You are jealous. You wish for pet yet wouldn't dare."_

_The male laughed out loud, the sound grating, booming and morphing into something more human sounding to Millie's ears as she lay dazed on the ground. A circle slowly formed around them all. She couldn't understand their words and her fear slowly increased as she twisted to sit on her butt, in crab position._

"_The only worthy Ooman is a dead Ooman, their skull in my collection. Prey, weak, pathetic." At that, the male jerked his massive head around to stare right at Millie. _

_She'd seen him before, the last two times she'd come to the mess hall. He was a giant, taller than her mate by at least half a head and twice as thick in muscle with grass green stripes and beige to off white belly, inner arms and thighs. There were so many scars that in certain places the various colors mixed and melded in swirls. He hadn't ever approached her or spoken to her, simply staring until the feeling of being watched crawled along her spine and had her head turning to see him a split second before she looked away. _

_Now was no different._

"_My pet survived. Three attacks I launched and my Ooman survived. She hit back. Resourceful, bold, strong. Good female for Ooman." Vsil'jk boasted, his mandibles spread as his shoulders lifted, trying to appear as big as he could in the face of an obvious superior. _

"_Three attacks from a know nothing Young Blood," the male sneered, posturing right back in a more impressive display. To Millie, the other male seemed to be humoring her mate, letting him that close. His muscles twitched, bunching and jumping but only slight so if she hadn't been looking she would've missed it. The fight was about her?_

_Vsil'jk snarled again, lunging forward with his body. The two were so close that their lower mandibles even touched off and on as they stared each other down, legs planted but arms kept out of it… so far._

_Millie hurriedly cast her gaze around, touching on the faces of familiar bodies from her previous trips to chow line. The aggressive male wasn't the only one she'd recognized. All around her were mammoth males, peppered off and on with a random female who couldn't seem to care less. The UnBloods who seemed to live for inspecting her were behind her, forming a broad shouldered semi-circle. They seemed just as unsure as she was, glancing quickly from the two males squaring off to her, down on the floor._

"_My pet would have thwarted you too," Vsil'jk challenged, slapping one of the other males mandibles with his own until that male growled louder and pressed forward, trying to force Vsil'jk back. _

"_Unlikely, Young Blood. You lack experience with Ooman's, with the Hunt. Likely your attempts on her were so obvious that even being a stupid, thick Ooman she saw them coming."_

_Vsil'jk snarled again, mandibles flapping to slap at the other._

_Millie stayed as she was, breathing so hard she felt light headed, staring at the two. They couldn't look more different. Even his dreads seemed slightly odd, black like her mate but a lesser shade. Off black, maybe, dull, matte, like wall paint back from Earth. Slowly her mind wrapped around the differences as she kept darting her eyes around her, taking in the bodies in the room. No one looked like that male, in skin or dread color. That had to mean something._

"_Stupid?" a male voice said from behind her, clear as day in English. Millie gasped and twisted her head quickly to see. One of the UnBloods, second in the line of four met her gaze with curiosity as he tilted his head and pointed to her mate. Hesitantly, Millie followed the finger to see Vsil'jk. _

_The comment was so out of left field that Millie felt dumb for a moment, wondering why he'd ask such a thing. _

_The challenging, paler male laughed again and dug in with a back foot to surge Vsil'jk back until he caught and countered his balance. "Stupid. From an UnBlood. Even they know, Young Blood. You don't have the skill to take a trophy worthy Ooman."_

"_She is worthy!" _

_The male growled into her mate's face before cutting his gaze to her on the floor. Finally, his whole head turned to stare at her. For the first time, Millie noticed his vibrant green eyes, as grass green as his stripes and just as piercing. She felt nailed in place. A predator's stare: compelling, evaluating, watchful._

"_Stupid?" the male mimicked the UnBlood from a moment ago, tilting his large head as his clawed fingers clicked together. Millie quickly dropped her gaze down his body to his hand, the fingers curling, flexing, before darting back to his face. _

_Complete silence blanketed the chow line, even the random females had stopped to watch what was happening. Millie didn't dare think about them and kept her eyes away, instead staring into the glowing green eyes of the male bothering Vsil'jk._

_Millie didn't understand this turn in the conversation. She heard the male repeat the word, yet no one else spoke. Quickly gazing around, meeting other pairs of eyes, she felt trapped and panicked. They were speaking to her, awaiting an answer._

"The Ooman has no answer?"

Millie blinked rapidly, coming back to herself just enough to register her off kilter balance and the pain radiating from various parts of her body. Her ribs especially, every time she breathed they burned. She felt tingly inside her skull as the tickly, numbing sensation quickly spread while her barely there vision darkened around the edges.

"Wha… what did you ask?" Millie rasped out.

A loud snort greeted her. "You should have stayed on the ship. You were ordered to stay."

Feeling even more light headed than before, Millie staggered as the tingling feeling increased, ratcheting through her entire body from toes to scalp and back again. Her stomach tensed, roiled and hovered on the cusp of vomiting.

"By Vsil'jk," Millie moaned out, pressing her lips together and curling them in under her teeth to hold back the nausea.

"Sei-i," the voice said in its monotone. "By Honorable Young Blood Vsil'jk. He is not your mate, stupid Ooman but you are also not his pet. Not anymore."

Not anymore? Millie's brain chugged to a halt, no memory forth coming. Instead she remembered snapshots. The sirens blared on the ship. The Yaut language poured through the speakers and suddenly everyone was on alert, running, preparing for the upcoming battle. The battle…

Her mind drew a blank and Millie sighed. No matter how she struggled to remember, the thoughts were always just out of her reach. Whimpering, standing in place, Millie tensed.

"_M-my name is Millie," she choked out. "Vsil'jk isn't stupid."_

_Both males turned her face her abruptly, staring._

_The weight of the world seemed to crush Millie's chest, fear speeding up her breathing as she looked between the two. _

"_One day, at sunset, I was hitting balls…" _

_She paused, seeing the confusion on various faces. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes she continued. "I was hitting balls on purpose, with a bat. I thought I was alone. The pitching machine was on the pitchers mound. I'd set it myself, one pitch for every sixty seconds so I could watch the ball go. Anyway, the sun was setting and when I hit the next ball, it hit something. Hard."_

_Millie relived the moment as the rest of the chow line kept quiet. She couldn't honestly tell if they understood her but it was of little concern. "The ball ended up hitting something that wasn't there. I couldn't see it. But it struck and all of a sudden this loud noise rang out, like a roar or something. I didn't know what to think." And she didn't._

"_I just... kinda froze there, stunned. I got scared but I couldn't move. I just kept staring at thin air where the ball hit, further down field. I couldn't… see anything, not at first. The pitching machine sent me another ball but I didn't hit it. I was too worked up, watching where the other ball had hit air before the backfield and over the fence for a homerun."_

_Cracking open her eyes, Millie saw much the same as she had when she first closed them. Her mate and the other male were still chest to chest but both were watching her intently. The tension in the chow line was heavy. Feeling like she was holding things up yet also compelled to explain; she tensed and closed her eyes again._

"_I heard another… roar. It sounded like a dinosaur. It was so loud I couldn't believe it even for a second time. My breathing stopped then got all crazy, my heart beat out of control but I couldn't see anything. The sound was getting closer so when the machine pitched another ball, I hit it where I wanted it to go, right at the sound."_

_Swallowing tightly, Millie trembled. "It hit something, again. The roar got louder and I actually watched the ball fall on the ground. The sun was setting at the back of the field but the mercury lights were coming on. I didn't want to hit anything, that wasn't the point of hitting balls. But I did. Twice. No one else was there, I was alone. I knew that. But I couldn't understand the sound I was hearing or what little I was seeing. I was so scared and confused. Then, it moved in front of the setting sun and I could see… something. It was an outline. Kinda, I dunno, watery or shimmering. It was a shape of a person. Or so I thought."_

_Millie paused then and kept breathing, her eyes wide as she watched the two large males before her. Her mate seemed to understand her tone, as he turned more to face her. The other though, the bigger, aggressive one growled low in his throat as he faced her too. He even took a step or two in her direction which made Vsil'jk rumble, watching him closely before the male stared down at her. _

"_Why?" the male said, tilting his head. _

_Millie didn't know what he meant, not with the pounding in her head. Blinking, she looked around again before meeting his glowing green eyes breathlessly. "Why… what? Why am I saying this?"_

_The male rumbled again, lifting his chin a bit as his lower mandibles clicked together. _

"_I don't… I don't really know. To tell you maybe that he's not stupid." Millie said hesitantly, darting her eyes back to her mate as he stood there, still carefully watching the other male. "To tell you my story. The first story, one of three. I don't have anything to hide. I don't… I've never been in this situation before."_

"_Tell us," one of the UnBloods trilled from behind her, sounding excited from his gravelly tone of voice. _

_When no one else responded, Millie risked a look over her shoulder to see the four of them there, standing tall and proud but so curious and enthralled that they looked like big kids to her. Swallowing, she hedged a smile before facing forward again. _

"_Sh-should I go on?" _

_Her mate said nothing, while the other male nodded slowly. _

_Millie wet her lips and cleared her throat, catching sight of three females pushing into the gathered circle, two to her left and one to her right yet she closed her eyes and started speaking. _

"_After the second hit, everything seemed to happen really fast. Before the next ball could come, the thing charged me. He was in between me and the machine. I was still frozen in place when the next ball launched and hit him hard in the back. He spun around, I think, to confront it and finally I could move."_

_The female's had finished pushing their way to the front of the circle, standing tall, taller than the males in her side vision when Millie blinked open her eyes and her heart stuttered. Gasping, she went on._

"_I didn't drop my bat. I wanted to, to just run, but my hands wouldn't let go so I kept it. I backed away from home plate slowly, looking around. My only two options were the dug out which was a faint depression sheltered by a wooden structure –" _

_Millie paused then, kicking herself for sounding stupid but also reminding herself that these creatures wouldn't be familiar otherwise. _

"_It led out into the open, outside the fence. The other was an opening in the fence, along the first base line but I'd have to run for it and he might catch me. I didn't know that it was a 'him' at the time, only a 'what'. He was camouflaged, or cloaked. Either word." _

"Run, Ooman." The voice came again, jarring Millie from her memories. Blinking and staggering in place, she slowly realized that she was close now to the base of the hill that led up to the high ridge, not far at all from the voice. At first she felt nothing, stunned, awed that she'd been in motion. She felt drunk, but like on wine.

She hated alcohol as a habit, beer being the main thing available when she was in college but they had the hard stuff too. Not ever wanting to risk her scholarship after bruising her hand by hitting the guy who cornered her in the bathroom, she'd stayed away but she remembered reunions. During her Dad's rare good days, only two since he was diagnosed at the holidays, her family had traveled the thirty plus miles to see relatives for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

They'd preferred wine over beer, and her mother never seemed to care, getting refill after refill and she and her father had shared a lonely wine glass between them for the night. Her head felt like that now, swimmy, elevated, cocooned in a boozy bubble without any pressure that turned into a headache, letting her think.

Millie blinked hard, lifting her hand to her forehead to squeegee the blood back, slicking back her hair as she forced herself to look around. Nothing moved, especially not to her left. Dead bodies littered the landscape, unmoving, adding to the topography as lights kept flashing over head and to the right, over the next ridge line.

Almost missing it, she spotted her alien. Her left hand clenched around the object it held as she squinted, watching the hard meat stagger around even closer than before, coming up behind her.

"_I wanted to run so badly, I didn't know what to do. I was so scared. I'd never been that scared in my life. He kept coming closer, stalking me. I happened to glance down and saw his large footprints forming in the dry dirt of our field. I knew something was there, something big." _

_Silence greeted her again, no one offering any sort of noise as she breathed deep several times and closed her eyes again. Even the aesigan behind the counters were still. _

"_I bolted to the side, along the fence line heading for the exit. I don't know why I chose that route instead of the dug out. I guess I figured I could be trapped, I dunno. I was so sweaty, so panicked that I had eyes only for the opening in the fence that would let me out. I sprinted for the exit with my bat still in hand. I never dropped it, but I didn't realize it until later. I was a foot, maybe two from freedom when I was hit so hard I don't really know what happened first. I either hit the chain link fence or I was hit, it was that fast."_

It really was that fast, only this time Millie wouldn't be able to decide if she hit the ground or was hit and then hit the ground as a new wave of agony exploded through her body and a horrific cry tore from her throat. As she started to lose consciousness, a maliciously gleeful laugh boomed before fading into premature silence.


End file.
